Despite the nationwide ban, Indian viewers are finding ways to watch BBC Narendra Modi Doc

EXCLUSIVE: Controversial BBC documentary Narendra Modi could be banned in India, analysts say local viewers still find ways to watch.

Ranking by global analytics company Parrot Analytics India: The Modi Problem in the top 10 worldwide breakout shows outside the US for the first week of March, the most recent week for which data is available.

Usage data tracks YouTube views, social media and includes piracy, which Parrot Communications Manager Wade Payson-Denney says is “particularly relevant in this case as the content is banned in India”.

“The significant global demand suggests that Indian consumers have circumvented the ban,” he told Deadline.

Parrot’s measure gave The modes problem a market multiple value of 14.7, meaning that in the week ending March 3, the show had 14.7 times more demand than the global average show across all platforms. This statistic is below big budget deals like Disney+ Hotstar’s The night manager and the South Korean drama from Netflix The Gloryand Parrot attributed much of this to observation in India.

While The modes problem is only available in full on BBC iPlayer in the UK, clips of the show on social media and YouTube are banned in India. That’s largely because he was focused on reporting on Modi’s handling of riots when he was prime minister in Gujarat in 2002, when a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims. The incident sparked one of the worst outbreaks of religious bloodshed in independent India, and Modi was accused of not doing enough to stop the unrest. He was acquitted of a High Court investigation in 2012, and a petition against his acquittal was dismissed last year.

The document was branded “hostile propaganda and anti-India rubbish” by the Indian government and sparked protests by dozens of members of the British Indian diaspora outside BBC New Broadcasting House in January. In the UK, it was seen by a consolidated audience of around 650,000 people, according to data from Overnights.tv’s Barb

A complaint against the ban in India was filed at the time of the protests and will be heard later this month.

The Indian government, meanwhile, tried to ban the BBC outright, which was rejected while the BBC’s offices in Mumbai and New Delhi were raided by tax authorities in mid-February.