Netflix has removed an Indian film from its platform after it sparked backlash and protest from right wing Hindu groups \u2013 the latest in several recent controversies where India\u2019s entertainment industry has caved to religious pressure campaigns. <\/p>\n
The film, \u2018Annapoorani: the Goddess of Food\u2019, follows a young woman\u2019s journey to become the best chef in India \u2013 which included cooking and eating meat, despite protests from her family, members of Hinduism\u2019s highest and traditionally vegetarian caste, the Brahmins. <\/p>\n
The movie was released on Netflix on December 29, where it quickly became the streaming platform\u2019s top trending movie in India, according to production studio Zee Entertainment. But less than two weeks later, the film vanished from the site, including its international platforms. <\/p>\n
The film had come under fire from several far-right Hindu groups, with some filing a First Information Report (FIR)\u00a0\u2013 which is required to start an official police investigation \u2013\u00a0against the film\u2019s director, producer and actors. <\/p>\n
India has various anti-hate speech laws designed to keep relations between different communities civil in a country with a long and bloody history of communal and inter-religious violence. <\/p>\n
In recent years Hindu nationalist groups have been increasingly adept at using those laws, or the threat of an investigation, to protest and remove content from art and media deemed to be offensive. <\/p>\n
The main complaint was that the film showed the \u201cdaughter of a Brahmin man\u201d eating meat and saying that the revered deity Lord Ram would eat meat, he said. <\/p>\n
Shriraj Nair, a spokesperson for another group, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), said they had sent letters of complaint to both Netflix and Zee Entertainment on January 9, claiming the movie \u201churt the religious sentiments of Hindus and Brahmins of India.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another VHP spokesperson claimed Zee Entertainment had issued an apology later that day, sharing an image of the letter on X, formerly Twitter. In the letter, the studio said it was coordinating with its co-producers to take action \u2013 including removing the film from Netflix \u201cuntil (it is) edited.\u201d <\/p>\n
India is a\u00a0huge part\u00a0of Netflix\u2019s push into Asia, with the company pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the market in recent years, and adding a Hindi option on its platform in 2020 to reach more Indian users. <\/p>\n
But, as Netflix and other streaming platforms have found out, navigating India\u2019s media landscape can be fraught, especially with deepening divides in recent years between the country\u2019s religious groups. <\/p>\n
In 2020, Netflix faced boycott calls in India over a scene in its series \u201cA Suitable Boy,\u201d depicting a young Hindu woman being kissed by a Muslim man at a Hindu temple. The complexity of\u00a0inter-religious relationships in India is a core part of the\u00a0seminal novel by Indian writer Vikram Seth that was adapted into the show. <\/p>\n
But this kiss nonetheless angered many viewers, including members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) \u2013 Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Hindu nationalist party. <\/p>\n
That incident, like the ongoing controversy over \u2018Annapoorani,\u2019 prompted a police complaint against Netflix executives. <\/p>\n
A year later, Amazon\u2019s new Prime Video series \u201cTandav\u201d came under similar fire, with Indian politicians complaining to police and regulators over its depiction of some Hindu deities. Both Amazon and the show\u2019s creators issued an apology. <\/p>\n
These controversies have also heightened long-simmering fears among filmmakers and creators over censorship. <\/p>\n
Indian filmmakers have faced censorship for decades, with reasons ranging from religious objections to accusations that plots are \u201cobscene\u201d or \u201cimmoral.\u201d <\/p>\n
Streaming content broke that mold because\u00a0it was, until recently, unregulated by the government \u2013 but in 2020, authorities announced new rules to rein in streaming services and online content. <\/p>\n
Those vaguely worded new rules have troubled filmmakers, pointing to a wide range of topics that have already been targeted with complaints and outrage. <\/p>\n
There are similar fears of censorship and press freedoms among the media, with the government using emergency powers last January to ban the release of a documentary about Modi, and tax authorities searching the BBC\u2019s offices in Delhi and Mumbai the following month. <\/p>\n\n
Netflix has removed an Indian film from its platform after it sparked backlash and protest from right wing Hindu groups \u2013 the latest in several recent controversies where India\u2019s entertainment industry has caved to religious pressure campaigns. The film, \u2018Annapoorani: the Goddess of Food\u2019, follows a young woman\u2019s journey to become the best chef in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}