Amazon’s unconditional apology over Tandav is the start of the top of OTT apps’ Hinduphobia

After going through a nation-wide backlash, a sequence of police circumstances in a number of states, and the creators of the net sequence ‘Tandav’ being dragged to the court docket, the OTT streaming platform Amazon Prime Video, tendered an apology to its Indian viewers for hurting their spiritual sentiments in its not too long ago launched political drama sequence.Issuing an apology, Amazon Prime Video apologised “unconditionally to anyone who felt hurt,” whereas promising that it’ll proceed to deliver content material with the utmost care and respecting spiritual sensitivity. The assertion articulates, “Amazon Prime Video again deeply regrets that viewers considered certain scenes objectionable. Hurting religious sentiments was never our intention, and the objectionable scene had been removed. We respect our viewers’ cultural beliefs and apologise unconditionally.”Before Amazon’s official assertion, the director and creator of Tandav, Ali Abbas Zafar got here out with a proper apology on Twitter. His assertion learn, “Tandav is a fictional work and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental. The cast and crew never had any intentions to hurt religious beliefs or insult any institution. The team of ‘Tandav’ respects the concern of the public and offers an unconditional apology.”Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Tandav’ is just not the primary internet sequence to land in such controversy however earlier than that numerous internet exhibits fell into related spiritual controversies. Shows similar to ‘Tandav’, ‘A Suitable Boy’, ‘Sacred Games’, and others had been hurting spiritual beliefs each repeatedly.To rein such Hindu-phobic internet content material, the Information Technology Ministry issued the rules (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, 2021). The guidelines drafted within the tips particularly holds the grip on the content material airing on OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.As anticipated by TFI, after the assertion of IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, guidelines will quickly be drafted to counter the menace and Hindu-phobia on the OTT platform. With a transparent conscience, TFI identified that the OTT platforms like Amazon Prime and Netflix are fast-becoming a rising breeding floor for anti-Hindu content material and they’re decided to defame the cultural id of India.Besides criticism from the general public and Supreme court docket, the OTT big additionally cared about its enterprise in India which accounts for roughly 6.5 billion US {dollars} ( roughly Rs.47,610 crores). In January 2020, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder in an occasion in Mumbai stated, “Business in India is better than the rest part of the world”.If making a controversial internet sequence was not sufficient for Amazon, it additionally flattered the overseas funding laws. According to a report by Reuters, Amazon has been giving preferential offers to a small group of sellers and falsified info of its sellers on its Indian on-line procuring web site to evade the nation’s overseas funding laws.