Still a white man's burden?

BBC on Trial (Documentary; 2024)

Produced by: Global Hindu Federation

Remember when Malaysians depended on Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) for our news fix? If one remembers well, the headlines on each vernacular channel emphasised different topics to keep each ethnicity happy and give the illusion that their needs were being considered.

They would have picked this up from their colonial masters, who perfected the art of diplomacy and ruling with the doctrine of 'divide and rule'. Goebbels is not the person who invented the propaganda. It was the British and their propaganda machine, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In fact, the Germans learnt it from BBC, which was incorporated into its current form in 1927.

In the 1930s, the BBC management was singing praises of the Nazi's attempt to clear off its enemies. BBC perfected the art of choosing the perfect word to sugarcoat a potential disaster. They broadcast 24/7 in 25 languages and three bandwidths to tell the right message that their audience wanted to hear. Like the Piped Piper leading the children of Hamelin into the mountain, BBC and its propaganda news drew and killed 100 million Indians in one way or another in 40 years. BBC drew in fiction writers and performers to seduce its crowd to believe their stories. George Orwell was recruited to write scripts for the news on India.

Of late, people worldwide have to realise the BBC's nefarious agenda. With its clever play with semantics, it managed to successfully demonise people and humanise terrorists. There is an overt anti-India bias. They were quick to paint India as a ridiculous nation of poverty, ignorance and sexual perverts.

A year before Modi's third-term election, BBC thought it appropriate to bring a 20-year-old squashed conspiracy linking Modi to the 2002 Gujerat Riots. Even though the Courts investigated and cleared Modi of any wrongdoing, BBC, in its self-professed role of the bearer of the white media's burden, released its controversial documentary, 'The Modi Question'. Elsewhere, it decided to vilify Indian social fibre; BBC made a hero of an accused rapist in the 'Nirbhaya Case' by having a one-on-one interview with him after paying him handsomely.

Pandit Satish Sharma,
Interfaith Speaker and Pandit of
Dharmic traditions
Brainchild behind the documentary.

The BBC has a very unique way of whitewashing crimes of a particular community of society when it comes to people of the Indian subcontinent. In the Leicester unrest recently, there is evidence of biased reporting, painting the Islamic aggressors as victims. Even Shamima Begum, who gave up her British citizenship to fight for ISIS, is portrayed as an innocent victim. Majid Freeman, an instigator of violence and a terrorist sympathiser, is labelled as a political activist.

BBC has been a prime mover of regime changes around the world. It is said they had assisted in 42 regime changes since 1945, starting with the assassination of Mosaddegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, when he nationalised British oil holdings in 1953. Their shenanigans continued with Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and the non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Even though BBC is good at 'exposing' the shortcomings of third-world countries, even the post-colonial nations have leapt forward, surpassing their master; they have, within their establishment, people of questionable morals. Cases of BBC executives like Jimmy Saville and Stuart Hall getting mangled with child sexual abuse are no secret. In his capacity as the Public Prosecutor, Keir Starmer, the current PM, thought the case did not merit further action.

There are many sepoys, chronic victims of Stockholm Syndrome, who are still in awe of their former colonial masters and are under the impression the sun still has not set on the empire. They worked with local associated companies to churn out denigrating news of their own countries.

BBC has manipulated information to serve its agenda, creating division and mistrust among global audiences. It raises critical questions about the ethical responsibilities of media institutions and challenges viewers to consider whether the BBC should be held accountable for its actions. Impartial reporting is not in the equation. Their ultimate aim is to balkanise nations, making them weak and unsustainable. That is when the next wave of imperialism moves in. The concept of 'divide and rule' never left the table.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.