NEW DELHI (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Bollywood once again has fallen into the crosshairs of India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party — and major Western streaming services like Amazon and Netflix increasingly find themselves caught in the middle.

Two separate criminal complaints were filed with police over the weekend against the makers of “Tandav,” a splashy new big-budget web series on Amazon.

The complainants, which include a politician with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, have insisted that the government pull the series off the air or take out key scenes. Among other objections, they accused the series of disrespecting Hindu gods, belittling members of individual castes and sullying the office of the prime minister.

If police find merit to the complaints, Amazon and the show’s promoters could wind up in criminal court.

Ali Abbas Zafar, director of “Tandav,” on Monday posted a statement on his Instagram account saying the show “is a work of fiction and any resemblance to acts and persons and events is purely coincidental.” However, the statement said, the cast and crew “take cognizance of the concerns expressed by the people and unconditionally apologize if it has unintentionally hurt anybody’s sentiments.”

Officials at Amazon have declined to comment.

Defenders of the show say those complaints are pretexts. The pressure on Amazon to drop the series, they say, is part of an increasingly intolerant atmosphere in India that affects even Bollywood, India’s film and entertainment industry. Actors, comedians, producers, artists and anyone who dares to question the government, even indirectly, can find their careers in peril, they say.

The true objection to “Tandav” may simply be that it is too real. The opening episode looks almost like a newsreel. It cuts from farmer protests to student protests to police killings — all events that have happened in recent months under the administration of Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister.

Authorities in Uttar Pradesh state, home to many recent police killings and run by one of Modi’s closest allies, a Hindu monk turned chief minister, seem especially offended. They said in a filing with police there that the Amazon series portrays the post of prime minister “in a very indecent manner.” On Monday, state officials warned that the filmmakers should “prepare for arrest.”

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