Netflix pulls Indian cooking drama, Annapoorani: The Goddess of Food, after religious backlash that ‘hurt Hindu sentiments’

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.

In the process, she abandons the strict vegetarianism of her upbringing – controversial because many upper-caste Hindus abstain from eating meat.

A Muslim classmate helps her navigate the challenges of her cutthroat culinary school, and the pair eventually fall in love, transcending India’s most fraught religious divide.

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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 film’s main stars.

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”.

Agence France-Presse has contacted Netflix’s India arm for comment.

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In one case, prominent director Anurag Kashyap told the newspaper that one of his adaptations had been cancelled by Netflix in 2021 as part of a campaign of “invisible censorship”.