A well-known recently released Indian movie was taken down from Netflix on Thursday due to criticism from Hindu organizations regarding its portrayals of interfaith romance and meat consumption.
“Annapoorani: The Goddess of Food” was taken down just weeks after its premiere in the latest instance of digital entertainment platforms in India canning controversial projects.
The movie, which was the second-most watched Netflix original series in India the day before it was pulled down, centers on the daughter of a Hindu priest who aspires to become the best chef in the country.
She also abandons the strict vegetarianism she was brought up with, which is divisive because a large number of Hindus from upper castes abstain from meat.
She receives help from a Muslim student to get over the challenges of her demanding culinary school, and in the end, the pair overcomes India’s most delicate religious divide and becomes enamored.
One affronted activist went as far as filing a police complaint last week alleging that the film promoted “love jihad” — a derogatory term coined by Hindu nationalists who accuse Muslim men of marrying Hindu women and forcing them to convert.
Ramesh Solanki, who filed the complaint, said on X that Netflix and co-producer Zee Studios had “deliberately made this film… to hurt Hindu sentiments” and asked police to prosecute the movie’s main stars.
A campaign urging a boycott of the film and its immediate removal from Netflix had also been trending on social media for several days.
Annapoorani had been removed from Netflix’s suite in India by Thursday afternoon, prompting jubilation from the film’s critics.
Shriraj Nair, a spokesman for a Hindu activist group which slammed the film, said its makers had “realised their mistake”.
“We have never ever interfered in the creative freedom of any film but Hindu Bashing and mocking will never be tolerated,” he wrote on X. AFP has contacted Netflix’s India arm for comment.
Film censorship has a long history in India, but since prime leader Narendra Modi took office in 2014, the industry has become more cautious about showing material that would violate the religious sensibilities of the nation’s predominant faith.
In December, The Washington Post revealed that Netflix and Amazon Prime, two other digital entertainment platforms, have halted a number of projects in India out of concern for offending Hindu beliefs in the nation, which is formally secular.
In one instance, well-known filmmaker Anurag Kashyap revealed to the publication that Netflix had canceled one of his adaptations in 2021 as a part of a “invisible censorship” operation.
