The Union government has decided to telecast the film ‘The Kerala Story’ on India’s national broadcaster Doordarshan on Friday, April 5 at 8 pm. The film, directed by Sudipto Sen, is a twisted and fabricated tale about women from Kerala joining the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant) and has been used as a political tool by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ever since its release on May 5, 2023. 

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday, April 4, stated that Doordarshan must not  degrade into a puppet that dances to the communal agenda of the Sangh Parivar and demanded the Union government not to use the platform to disparage Kerala. He said that  the people from diverse religious backgrounds coexist harmoniously in the spirit of brotherhood in the state. To counter the misrepresentation of the state by ‘The Kerala Story’, Kerala government published an advertisement with the tagline ‘The Real Kerala Story’ to commemorate the second anniversary of their coming to power in the state.

Read: Kerala govt publishes list of achievements on anniversary, calls it ‘Real Kerala Story’

“Those who have previously disparaged Kerala by likening it to Somalia - a state that is a model to the country in eradicating extreme poverty and is in the forefront of several indices including those of the NITI Aayog - are now clandestinely endeavouring to propagate the fallacious narrative that Kerala is a hub of religious conversions. Widespread protests had already erupted against this film which is based on the lies and the hatred perpetuated by the Sangh Parivar,” Pinarayi Vijayan said.

Kerala’s opposition leader VD Satheesan on Friday, April 5, requested the Election Commision of India to direct Doordarshan to not telecast ‘The Kerala Story’. “As you are aware, the Kerala Story is a propaganda film based on extremely false premises and attempts to paint a bleak picture of the people of the state. I believe this is part of Sangh Parivar’s poisonous agenda to divide the country along communal lines. It is a violation of the model code of conduct and is a direct insult to the people of Kerala,” the letter read.

He also stated that the decision of the Union government to telecast the movie on Doordarshan before the Lok Sabha elections was a tacit effort to divide the society on religious grounds for BJP’s electoral gains.

The film’s first teaser released on November 3, 2022 consisted of an exaggerated statement that 32,000 girls from Kerala have been radicalised and “buried in the desert of Syria and Yemen.” Following criticisms that this could amount to hate speech, the filmmakers backtracked from the conflated numbers and claimed it was based on news reports.

According to an RTI reply obtained by TNM from the Ministry of Home Affairs, 177 people have been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from 2014 to 2020 for being ISIS members and sympathisers. Out of this, 19 hail from Kerala. In 2016, around 21 people went missing from Kerala–16 from Kasaragod, three from Palakkad and one each from Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam. Out of this, 17 were Muslims, of which four were converted–three from Christianity and one from the Hindu religion. No case of forced conversion has been reported yet in Kerala. However, the film rides high on love jihad, a bogus claim made by the Hindu right wing that Muslim men are ‘luring’ Hindu women into marriages to convert them to Islam, and creates a narrative contrary to the facts.  

The film was also screened in the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, organised in November 2023. Two delegates from Kerala were detained at the Panaji police station for an hour for peacefully protesting against the film and debarred from attending the event in future. In an Instagram video, the delegates said when Sudipto Sen was questioned regarding his claims in the movie, the director initiated a verbal argument with them. In a similar situation in 2022, Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, who headed the jury panel of IFFI that year, referred to director Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Kashmir Files’ as “vulgar” and a “propaganda movie”, adding that the jury was “disturbed and shocked” to see the film being screened at the prestigious film festival. 

Read: The Kerala Story review: A no-nuance propaganda film that thrives on shock value