Indian series 'Tandav' on Amazon Prime Video to be edited after mocking Hindu gods -

Amazon Studios

Available since Friday on Prime Video, Amazon's SVOD platform, the Indian political series

Tandav

is at the heart of a controversy, after politicians from the BJP, the ruling party, ruled that the Hindu gods were being mocked.

The team and production agreed to make changes.

This series with Bollywood superstar Saif Ali Khan and considered "the

Indian

House of Cards

" sparked an outcry among members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata.

Some even called for its ban, believing that it was "deliberately mocked at Hindu gods", thus undermining Hindu religious sensibilities.

Complaints and apologies

Faced with the outcry, Ali Abbas Zaffar, the director of

Tandav

announced late Tuesday evening on his Twitter account the production's intention to modify his series: "The actors and the team of Tandav have made the decision to make changes to the series in reaction to the concerns raised ”.

In one of the scenes that provoked the ire of the BJP, the Hindu deity Shiva speaks of "azaadi" (freedom) as she appears in a college play and pronounces "azaadi" (freedom), a word that had been chanted. to rally anti-government protests in 2019 across the country.

The entire production had already apologized on Monday, after being warned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, according to the director, that a large number of complaints and petitions were pouring in against the series.

"Any resemblance to facts or people is purely fortuitous"

“Tandav is a work of fiction and any resemblance to facts, people and events is purely fortuitous,” Ali Abbas Zaffar also said.

Among the petitioners is Ram Kadam, a BJP parliamentarian in Bombay, claiming that he "fights for Hindu pride and works to ensure that no one dares to make fun of Hindu gods".

Major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney have increased their presence in the country of 1.3 billion people, notably by ordering the production of local content.

Streaming services are not subject to the Pas's censorship commissions, notorious for their frequent cuts to programming.

More and more requests, notably from members of the BJP, demand that these services be subject to the same control.

The most recent controversy concerned the series

A Suitable Boy

adapted from the successful novel by Vikram Seth, produced by the BBC and broadcast on Netflix.

A BJP politician had filed a complaint alleging that the fiction had struck his Hindu religious sensibility, in particular because of a scene where a young Hindu woman kisses a young Muslim in front of a temple.

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