New Delhi
CNN
 — 

Netflix has eliminated an Indian movie from its platform after it sparked backlash and protest from proper wing Hindu teams – the newest in a number of current controversies the place India’s entertainment industry has caved to non secular stress campaigns.

The movie, ‘Annapoorani: the Goddess of Food’, follows a younger lady’s journey to develop into the most effective chef in India – which included cooking and consuming meat, regardless of protests from her household, members of Hinduism’s highest and historically vegetarian caste, the Brahmins.

The film was launched on Netflix on December 29, the place it shortly grew to become the streaming platform’s high trending film in India, in response to manufacturing studio Zee Entertainment. But lower than two weeks later, the movie vanished from the positioning, together with its worldwide platforms.

“We removed this film at the request of the licensor,” a Netflix spokesperson confirmed to CNN in a press release Tuesday.

CNN reached out to Zee Entertainment and the movie’s director, however didn’t obtain a response by the point of publication.

The movie had come underneath hearth from a number of far-right Hindu teams, with some submitting a First Information Report (FIR) – which is required to begin an official police investigation – towards the movie’s director, producer and actors.

The FIR was registered with police underneath the part “outraging religious feelings” and “promoting enmity between different groups,” in response to a duplicate of the doc reviewed by CNN.

India has varied anti-hate speech legal guidelines designed to maintain relations between completely different communities civil in a rustic with a protracted and bloody historical past of communal and inter-religious violence.

In current years Hindu nationalist teams have been more and more adept at utilizing these legal guidelines, or the specter of an investigation, to protest and take away content material from artwork and media deemed to be offensive.

Ramesh N Solanki, founder and president of the Hindu IT Cell, a bunch that vows to take authorized motion towards any content material “defaming” Hinduism, informed CNN he wrote a criticism to police on January 6 alleging the movie “is intentionally released to hurt Hindu sentiments.”

The major criticism was that the movie confirmed the “daughter of a Brahmin man” consuming meat and saying that the revered deity Lord Ram would eat meat, he stated.

Shriraj Nair, a spokesperson for an additional group, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), stated that they had despatched letters of criticism to each Netflix and Zee Entertainment on January 9, claiming the film “hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus and Brahmins of India.”

Another VHP spokesperson claimed Zee Entertainment had issued an apology later that day, sharing a picture of the letter on X, previously Twitter. In the letter, the studio stated it was coordinating with its co-producers to take motion – together with eradicating the movie from Netflix “until (it is) edited.”

CNN can’t confirm the authenticity of the letter and has requested Zee Entertainment for remark.

India is a huge part of Netflix’s push into Asia, with the corporate pouring a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into the market lately, and including a Hindi choice on its platform in 2020 to achieve extra Indian customers.

But, as Netflix and different streaming platforms have discovered, navigating India’s media landscape might be fraught, particularly with deepening divides lately between the nation’s non secular teams.

In 2020, Netflix faced boycott calls in India over a scene in its sequence “A Suitable Boy,” depicting a younger Hindu lady being kissed by a Muslim man at a Hindu temple. The complexity of inter-religious relationships in India is a core a part of the seminal novel by Indian author Vikram Seth that was tailored into the present.

But this kiss nonetheless angered many viewers, together with members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist social gathering.

That incident, like the continued controversy over ‘Annapoorani,’ prompted a police criticism towards Netflix executives.

A yr later, Amazon’s new Prime Video sequence “Tandav” came under similar fire, with Indian politicians complaining to police and regulators over its depiction of some Hindu deities. Both Amazon and the present’s creators issued an apology.

These controversies have additionally heightened long-simmering fears amongst filmmakers and creators over censorship.

Indian filmmakers have confronted censorship for many years, with causes starting from non secular objections to accusations that plots are “obscene” or “immoral.”

Streaming content material broke that mould as a result of it was, till lately, unregulated by the federal government – however in 2020, authorities introduced new guidelines to rein in streaming companies and on-line content material.

Those vaguely worded new guidelines have troubled filmmakers, pointing to a variety of subjects which have already been focused with complaints and outrage.

There are comparable fears of censorship and press freedoms among the many media, with the federal government utilizing emergency powers final January to ban the release of a documentary about Modi, and tax authorities looking the BBC’s places of work in Delhi and Mumbai the next month.