Tamil Nadu government seeks ban on release of ‘The Family Man 2’

The Tamil Nadu government on Monday wrote to the Union government seeking immediate action either to stop or ban the release of The Family Man-2 web series on Amazon Prime OTT platform across the country. The trailer of the Manoj Bajpai and Samantha starrer, which was released recently, “depicted the Eelam Tamils in a highly objectionable manner.”

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Information Technology Minister T. Mano Thangaraj, in his letter to Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar, said, the web series (due to release in June) not only hurt the sentiments of Eelam Tamils but also the feelings of the people of Tamil Nadu and “if allowed to broadcast, it would be prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony in the State.”

On Sunday, MDMK leader Vaiko had made a similar plea to Mr Javadekar and earlier Naam Tamilar Katchi leader Seeman sought a ban on its release.

Contending that the contents of said series in Hindi was “condemnable, inappropriate and malicious”, he said the recently released trailer was aimed at discrediting and distorting the historical struggle of Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka.

“The sacrifices of their long drawn out democratic battle has been intentionally undermined and it could not, by any stretch of imagination considered merely as a serial with any value for Tamil Culture. Moreover, a serial, which is loaded with insults and insinuations against the glorious Tamil culture could never be considered as the one having any broadcasting value,” Mr. Thangaraj contended.

For instance, “branding Tamil-speaking actress Samantha as a terrorist” in the serial was directly an attack on the pride of Tamils living around the world and no one would tolerate this kind of motivated and mischievous campaign, he said. The trailer “has already evoked strong and widespread opposition from the people of Tamil Nadu as well as from the political parties in the State,” he said.

While the Eelam Tamils were struggling for decades to enjoy the fruits of equality, justice, peace and dignity in the Island nation, “it is highly unwarranted for an organisation like Amazon Prime to undertake this kind of smear campaign against the Tamils, who are builders of India as well as many nations across the globe,” the Minister said.