Controversies aren’t anything new in the Indian OTT space but the way government intervened in the ‘Tandav‘ matter recently, forcing the makers to censor their content, does raise some concern about the OTT platforms and the freedom they have been enjoying until now.
Any little thing can now disappoint the Indian audience whose tolerance level these days seems to always be on a tipping point. As soon as there is a content that points out or raises questions about certain contentious social matter, hash tags start trending on twitter protesting against the OTT platforms, filmmakers and actors.
And we all know what this public anger and frustration led to this time. Do we as audience want to see only an idealised version of our society? Will this government intervention and censorship remain as a one-off event or will it set a precedent for future OTT contents? Also, does this mean that the creative freedom of Indian content creators/story-tellers and OTT platforms is in danger?
Nobody has a clear answer for these questions right now and it’s only with time that we would be able to know how things play out. Until now OTTs have been mostly self censoring their content with at times government acting as a guide. But after the ‘Tandav’ case, there are speculations that government might take up the matter of formulation of OTT regulations more strictly.
While that’s the prerogative of the government, people need to understand that most of the time, the intent is not to question or disrespect centuries old religions or cultures but just to bring forth the extreme prejudices that have crept in the society over a long period. And when it’s not so and there’s substantial proof that it’s driven by some hidden propaganda, censoring is always there to resort to. But shouting out each time when something fictional offends someone is nothing but early warning sign of an intolerant society.
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