New Delhi: Vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar told a batch of Indian Information Services probationers on February 15 that there is a need to disallow the “free fall of doctored narratives” that intend to run down India’s growth story.IIS officers are spokespersons and media managers of the government.Dhankhar’s remarks came as the Income Tax department was 48 hours into conducting ‘surveys’ at the offices of the British Broadcasting Corporation in New Delhi and Mumbai. The raids are still going on at the time of publishing this report. These ‘surveys’ – globally decried as a means to quell press freedom – have come within weeks of the Narendra Modi government’s banning and criticism of the BBC’s documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots, ‘India: The Modi Question.’The Tribune, among multiple news outlets that reported on Dhankhar’s address, noted that he did not mention the BBC by name.“In the last decade or so, a narrative was set afloat by a global news house, that seeks to lay claim on its own reputation, that someone possessed weapons of mass destruction and, therefore, it’s a just cause for the humanity to take on. Things happened. No WMDs were found. Now, when India is on the rise, sinister designs are there to set afloat a narrative by free fall of information. We have to be alert,” Dhankhar said.This was possibly a reference to the New York Times and its coverage that is believed to have supported the US’s invasion of Iraq. NYT later apologised for sizeable gaps in the reporting. Just days ago, however, the paper ran an editorial noting that India’s press freedom has taken a beating under the Modi government.Hindustan Times quoted the vice-president as having followed this up with the words: “This is another way of invasion. We have to boldly neutralise it. We have to instil in us [a] spirit of nationalism,”“Everything can be whitewashed and can go down the drain if people are not vigilant against such tendency,” he added.Dhankhar also said that no country in the world has respected the fact that freedom of expression is “valuable, inalienable,” more than India, according to the HT report.Dhankhar also claimed that narratives have been “spun” on India’s handling of the pandemic and the vaccines made in the country.“We no longer have the luxury of delayed response,” he told the IIS fleet.A BBC World Service staffer once stationed in London said on Twitter, “How times change…As a senior advocate, Jagdeep Dhankhar would make it a point to visit BBC World Service office at Bush House, adjacent to the Indian High Commission on his every visit to London and would politely insist for an interview. Today it is a ‘doctored narrative’.”How times change…..As a senior advocate, Jagdeep Dhankar would make it a point to visit BBC World Service office at Bush House, adjacent to the Indian High Commission on his every visit to London & would politely insist for an interview.Today it is doctored narrative…. pic.twitter.com/odnDfZAoiN— Nagendar Sharma (@sharmanagendar) February 16, 2023