British MPs across political spectrum questions U.K. government on BBC India raids

The Income-Tax raids were conducted at BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai last week.

The U.K. government was questioned by MPs in the House of Commons on its response to the income tax (IT) raids on BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai last week. Tory MP, David Rutley, who is the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), took questions on the raid and freedom of expression in India, from members representing a cross section of opposition parties as well as his own, for just under twenty minutes on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Rutley strongly defended the BBC.

“We stand up for the BBC, we fund the BBC, we think the BBC World Service is vitally important.,” Mr Rutley said , adding that the U.K. government wanted the BBC to have the editorial freedom and noting that the BBC criticizes the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.

“It has that freedom which we believe is vitally important and that freedom is key. We want to be able to communicate the importance of that with our colleagues...our friends across the world, including the government in India,” he said.

“Let’s be very clear: this was a deliberate act of intimidation following the release of an unflattering documentary about the country’s leader ,” said Jim Shannon, of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), as he kicked off the debate with an ‘Urgent Question’. The BBC’s offices were raided weeks after the channel released a two part documentary, ‘India: The Modi Question’, which was deeply critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots and the BJP’s relationship with India’s Muslims.

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“...media freedom and freedom of speech are essential elements for robust democracies,” Mr Rutley said, declining to comment on the specifics of last week’s tax raid. He acknowledged that the issues being faced by NGOs and faith based organisations in India (raised in the question) was an important one.

Conservative MP Julian Lewis characterised the raid as “extremely worrying”.