'This is politics by other means': S Jaishankar responds to BBC documentary row on PM Modi

"There's a phrase - war by other means. Think of it - this is politics by other means. Why is there suddenly a surge of reports, attention, and views? Will some of these things not happen again?" Jaishankar said on being asked to respond to the controversial BBC documentary during a special ANI podcast.

The documentary comes ahead of the 2024 national election.

The same had been earlier taken down from social media platforms last month by the government using emergency powers under IT rules.

"You have to make a documentary? Many things happened in Delhi in 1984. Why didn't we see a documentary? I mean, come on, you think the timing is accidental? Let me tell you one thing - I don't know if election season has started in India and Delhi or not but for sure it has started in London and New York," the minister said, referring to the deadly anti-Sikh riots in 1984 by Congress-led mobs after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.

Jaishankar remarked that sometimes, the politics of India didn't even originate in its borders, but came from outside.

The two-part BBC series on Gujarat riots—The Modi Question— claimed to have investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of that state.

The Ministry of External Affairs earlier trashed the two-part BBC documentary on Gujarat riots as a "propaganda piece" that lacked objectivity and reflected a "colonial mindset".

The Supreme Court had earlier dismissed the allegations.

Responding to the same on Tuesday, Jaishankar said: "I mean, do you doubt it? Look who the cheerleaders are. What is happening is, just like I told you -- this drip, drip, drip -- how do you shape a very extremist image of India, of the government, of the BJP, of the Prime Minister. I mean, this has been going on for a decade."

The motive behind such stories abroad was to further the anti-India agenda, he said.

"Let's not have illusions about it..., there is an echo chamber, it will be picked outside and then they will say it is being said outside, it must be true. Then you will say it inside. There is a ding-dong going on, look this is a globalized world, people take that politics abroad," the Foreign Minister said.

"We are not debating just a documentary or a speech that somebody gave in a European city or a newspaper edits somewhere -- we are debating, actually politics, which is being conducted ostensibly as media -- there is a phrase 'war by other means' this is politics by another means -- I mean you will do a hatchet job, you want to do a hatchet job and say this is just another quest for truth which we decided after 20 years to put at this time."