The Great Indian Streaming Wars
DISCLAIMERS AT THE START OF MOVIES OR TELEVISION SHOWS are fairly common, but the one that leads season 2 of the Netflix detective series Sacred Games is particularly exhaustive: “Resemblance of any character of this series to any persons, places, real events, linguistic groups, political parties, communities, religions or sects is purely coincidental and unintentional.” It could have added that viewers should lighten up. In 2018, an Indian politician filed a complaint to the police because a character in the show’s first season, while narrating a period of India’s history, called former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the Hindi word fattu—translated in subtitles as “pussy.”
Netflix’s legalese may yet prove useful: On Sept. 3, another politician filed a police complaint against the streaming service for “defaming Hindus.” The fictional characters and circumstances depicted in do seem familiar in modern-day India. Based on the eponymous 2006 novel by Vikram Chandra, the series follows a Mumbai police officer named Sartaj Singh—played ably by the Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan—who is attempting to save his city from an imminent terrorist attack. The latest season, released on Aug. 15, India’s Independence Day, picks up from last year’s cliffhanger finale and reveals that a group of anarchists has acquired a nuclear bomb and plans to blow up the country’s financial capital.
