Netflix and Amazon gave daring Indian filmmakers hope. Now that's turning to fear

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video gave Indian filmmakers an unprecedented platform for bold, uncensored storytelling when they entered the country's streaming market — but growing political pressure, boycott campaigns and new government content rules are turning that early hope into fear, CNN reported on March 27, 2021. Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, whose planned Netflix adaptation of the nonfiction book "Maximum City" was shelved, captured the shift bluntly: "Streaming was finally the space I was waiting for," he told CNN. "The disappointment is it was supposed to be a revolution, but it was not."

India's government brought previously unregulated streaming platforms under formal oversight starting in November 2020, later adding content-classification and grievance-officer requirements, according to CNN. The regulatory shift followed a string of controversies over individual shows and films that drew boycott calls, police complaints or, in some cases, led to platforms editing or shelving content outright.

The shows caught in the crossfire

CNN's reporting cited a run of titles that faced backlash: Netflix's "Guilty," a rape-investigation drama; "A Suitable Boy," which faced boycott calls over a Hindu-Muslim kissing scene; Amazon's political drama "Tandav," criticized for depicting Hindu gods and leading to police complaints against its creators; the crime series "Mirzapur"; "Sacred Games," criticized over language, violence and nudity; the cricket drama "Inside Edge"; "Bombay Begums," a drama about five women that drew complaints; "Paatal Lok," whose second season was reportedly shelved; and Disney+ Hotstar's comedy "Hundred."

The writers' room describes a chill

Writer Sumit Purohit told CNN the self-censorship makes writers "angry, frustrated," adding, "that is not how any art is created," and separately observed, "In India, anyone can have a problem with anything." Filmmaker Ruchi Narain said, "I struggled a lot because I am an outsider and a woman." Novelist and filmmaker Samit Basu noted the earlier boom years, when "a lot of book rights were auctioned and writers' rooms started happening." Investigative journalist Josy Joseph summed up the mood among Mumbai's creative community: "There is a massive depression that has set into the creative minds of Mumbai."

From open door to closing door

Basu's line about the boom years underscores how fast the climate changed: streaming platforms initially drove a wave of book-rights auctions and new writers' rooms specifically because they promised more creative latitude than Indian television or theatrical releases, which already operated under a formal censor board. CNN's reporting frames the November 2020 regulatory shift as the turning point — the moment streaming lost the one advantage, freedom from prior censorship, that had made it attractive to filmmakers like Kashyap in the first place.

What it signals

Streaming platforms entered India promising exactly what state broadcasters and censor boards couldn't offer: room for uncomfortable stories. CNN's reporting suggests that promise ran into the same political and religious pressure points that shaped Indian cinema and television for decades — just with new formal regulatory teeth behind it. A platform that once functioned as an end-run around censorship becomes far less useful to daring creators once it starts anticipating the backlash before a single episode airs. Separately, a November 2023 Washington Post piece covered a related but distinct set of events on this same theme; its facts have not been verified here and are not part of this account.

US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by CNN. It restores a story originally published on this site in March 2021; figures are as reported at the time.