The Family Man: Controversies that plagued Manoj Bajpayee’s spy thriller series

The makers of The Family Man surely know how to stir the hornet’s nest. Soon after the trailer of the second season of the show released a few weeks ago, it courted controversy for its comments about Sri Lankan Tamils, with several people including a Tamil Nadu minister calling for a ban on the web series. This, however, is not the first time that the show, which dropped its second instalment on Amazon Prime Video on June 3, has come under the scanner.

With the show’s protagonist Srikant Tiwari and his undercover intelligence team tracking a group of terrorists to Kashmir in the first season, the makers also explored the political situation of the Valley including the dynamics and distrust between the Indian forces and the locals.

One of the sequences that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) took offence to was when Gul Panag’s character Saloni, who is a Kashmiri, apprises Srikant of the ways that the system uses politics to deprive people of basic communication facilities. The RSS apparently accused the makers of anti-nationalism for presenting the Army in a negative light.

The web series’ creators Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK had to face similar accusations when the trailer of season 2 released a few weeks ago, with people calling the show “anti-Tamil” for referring to Samantha Akkineni’s character as a “terrorist”.

Many took to social media to tweet that the trailer had offended the Eelam Tamil’s liberation movement with hashtags #ShameOnYouSamantha and #FamilyMan2_against_Tamils trending. The widespread discontent also led to Tamil Nadu IT minister Mano Thangaraj and Rajya Sabha MP Vaiko writing to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to halt the release of the show across the country as “the serial is directly an attack on the pride of Tamils living around the world”.

Naam Tamiliar Katchi leader Seeman had also demanded a ban on the series for “intentionally portraying the LTTE as terrorists and Tamils as dangerous people”.

In response to this, Raj and DK, issued a statement, saying, “Some assumptions and impressions have been made based on just a couple of shots in the trailer. Many of our lead cast members, as well as key members of the creative and writing team, are Tamilians. We are very cognisant of the sentiments of the Tamil people and Tamil culture and have nothing but the utmost love and respect towards our Tamil people.”

Both the cast and crew also insisted people, to form an opinion only after they watch the entire series. Actor Sharib Hashmi, who plays the role of JK in The Family Man, in an interview with Deccan Herald said, “Raj and DK are extremely responsible filmmakers and do thorough research before tackling any issue through their work. I never had any second thoughts about the show due to the political undertones.”