Actress Anushka Sharma served with the legal notice against the Casteist slurs used in her web series “Paatal Lok”:-

A very controversial matter started to catch hype as in relation to the use racial discriminatory and casteist slurs in the new trending webseries “Paatal lok”. In lieu of the aforesaid matter the advocate Viren Sri Gurung who is a member of the Lawyers Guild that has been formed to provide free legal advice in the duration of COVID-19 crisis and associated to the chambers of Mr. Pranay Rai and associates, has dispatched a legal notice to actress Anushka Sharma who is co- producer of “Paatal lok” on the 18 th of May against the Casteist slurs used in her show.

Gurung in his statement said, that there is a clip in the series wherein during an interrogation lady police officer uses casteist slurs to dishonour Nepali character. The matter would not have gained importance if only the word Nepali had been used but the word which follows it is unacceptable and provides an intolerable expression to the scene in a term of discriminational abuse and racial comment defaming the Nepali community. The Gorkha committee raised a strong objection in accordance with the defamatory remarks against the community demanding the word be dropped in the web series in an online petition started by them on Monday 18th of May and addresed the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, the Minister Prakash Javdekar, Amazon prime videos and series producer Anushka Sharma, they even stated that such a remark against the Gorkha women portrayed them in a poor light.

One must refrain from consuming such a content that shows a community in a negative light just for the sake of entertainment and creative freedom, said Dewan.

Nanda stated that community was already enduring racism during the times of coronavirus and such remarks on the community would be just increasing their troubles, the sequence of the Patal lok would not only be encouraging racist but also rape attempt on women.

The insult hurled by the police woman on the Nepali girl not only reinstates the streo-typing of northeast people but also puts the whole clan down as the Gorkha community is the largest Nepali speaking community.

Gurung even added that he is yet to receive any reply from Anushka, failing of which the legal team would be stepping up to the OTT platform streaming it, Amazon prime videos and others associated with the series. If the OTT platform and the producers fail to respond within 3 days then the team would be moving to court with the subsequent matter as warned by Dewan

By Rajat Verma of MMDU