Satish Jacob worked for the BBC in its India office for a long stretch at a time when it was considered the only reliable source of news in India. When the Income Tax Department were at the BBC's Delhi and Mumbai offices recently for a 'survey', he said he was "taken aback but not surprised".

"But one thing I knew – they wouldn't be able to find any hanky-panky in its accounts, because the BBC is not a commercial organisation. Its funds come from the British government," he tells Sidharth Bhatia in this podcast discussion.

Jacob is also convinced that the surveys are a reaction to the two documentaries made by the BBC on the Gujarat violence of 2002 and the anti-minority violence since Narendra Modi became the prime minister.

All kinds of organisations are being used against the media, says Jacob, "and I see journalists not trying to annoy the government. There is fear." Jacob says emphatically that during all his years in the BBC, no political party or the government ever said anything officially about its coverage.

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