Kaali director Leena Manimekalai courts fresh controversy with new pic, says Hindutva can never be India

With the post which she captioned  "Elsewhere", Manimekali apparently tried to answer her critics, who slammed her for depicting Goddess Kali in a way that hurt their religious sentiments.

For the unversed, Leena Manimekalai ran into controversy after she shared the poster of her film on social media, depicting a woman dressed as Hindu Goddess Kali. She is seen smoking a cigarette and holding the LGBTQ+ community's pride flag in one of her four hands apart from the goddess's usual accouterments of Trishul (trident), and sickle.

Thinking that the new image was from her controversial films, social media users came down heavily on her.

"This is not from my film. This is from everyday rural India that these sangh parivars want to destroy with their relentless hate & religious bigotry. Hindutva can never become India," Leena Manimekalai tweeted after her post created a new controversy.

"BJP payrolled troll army have no idea about how folk theatre artists chill post their performances," the Toronto-based director wrote, attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Apart from widespread condemnation on social media, complaints have been filed against the director in several states in India.

Twitter in India has taken down her original tweet releasing the poster of the movie.

"Kaali cannot be lynched. Kaali cannot be raped. Kaali cannot be destroyed. She is the goddess of death," Leena Manimekalai said reacting to the action of Twitter.

Speaking to The Guardian, Leena Manimekalai said, "It feels like the whole nation – that has now deteriorated from the largest democracy to the largest hate machine – wants to censor me."

“In rural Tamil Nadu, the state I come from, Kaali is believed to be a pagan goddess. She eats meat cooked in goat’s blood, drinks arrack, smokes beedi [cigarettes] and dances wild … that is the Kaali I had embodied for the film," she said.