LONDON — The BBC has received a formal complaint from the Indian High Commission about the “tasteless” way the country was portrayed in a recent Top Gear Christmas special.
The Commission has written to the BBC complaining about the program’s tone and stunts from hosts Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond.
Stunts in the show included fitting a Jaguar car with a toilet in the back to poke fun at the country’s hygiene standards, and painting banner advertisments on railway trains so that they read “shit for your company” and “eat English muff” when the trains separated.
“I write this to convey our deep disappointment over the documentary for its content and the tone of the program,” the Indian High Commissioner said, according to a piece in the Daily Telegraph.
“The program was replete with cheap jibes, tasteless humor and lacked the cultural sensibility that we expect from the BBC,” it went on.
The BBC confirmed it will examine the complaint, which is the latest in a series of complaints the show and it’s increasingly controversial host Jeremy Clarkson.
Last year the BBC was forced to apologize to the Mexican High Commissioner about a program where Mexicans were portrayed as “lazy” and “stupid.” The pubcaster also had to apologize to viewers after Clarkson said on air that striking public service workers “should be executed in front of their families.” It is still investigating the issue which generated more than 30,000 complaints.
