Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday launched a fresh attack against the makers of Hindutva propaganda movie ‘The Kerala Story’, saying they were taking up the Sangh Parivar propaganda of projecting the state as a centre of religious extremism by raising the issue of ‘love jihad’ — the hate campaign rejected by the courts, probe agencies and even the Union Home Ministry.
This fake story is the product of Sangh Parivar’s lie factory, the chief minister said.
Vijayan’s response comes after the sharp criticisms against the movie and Hindutva campaign from several political parties, Muslim groups and activists in the southern Indian state.
According to CM Vijayan, the trailer of the film, at first glance, appears to be “deliberately produced” with the aim of creating communal polarisation and spreading hate propaganda against the state.
“The big lie that 32,000 women in Kerala converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State was what we saw in the trailer of the film. This fake story is the product of the Sangh Parivar’s lie factory,” Vijayan added.
The CM, in a Malayalam statement, said that such propaganda films and the alienation of Muslims depicted in them should be viewed in the context of Sangh Parivar’s efforts to gain political advantage in Kerala.
“It is necessary to see propaganda films and their Muslim alienation in the background of various efforts being made by Sangh Parivar to gain the advantage in electoral politics in Kerala,” he said.
Both the ruling CPI(M) in Kerala and the opposition Congress hit out at the propaganda movie ‘The Kerala Story’, saying freedom of expression was not a licence to spew venom in society, and the film was an attempt to target Muslims in the state.
Sudipto Sen’s ‘The Kerala Story’ is presented as an exposé of the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of an estimated 32,000 women in the southern state. However, the film falsely claims that these women had converted to radical ideologies and were subsequently utilized in terrorist activities across India and beyond.
