As Karnataka elections near, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are capitalising on the debate surrounding the controversial film The Kerala Story, which tells the story of young women from Kerala who were converted to Islam and joined the terror outfit, ISIS. Leaders have been promoting the film by appealing to “Hindu society” to watch the film and demanding tax exemptions for it. The film has been widely criticised for allegedly presenting exaggerated statistics on the number of women from the state who have joined ISIS.
On Sunday, May 7, BJP Member of Parliament Tejasvi Surya said The Kerala Story is “an important movie documenting and reflecting social issues of our times, in Kerala and other parts of the country. It has a salient message for our young women.” He also invited “young girl students of Bengaluru” to join BJP’s national president JP Nadda for a special screening of the movie on Sunday evening. Nadda subsequently said that The Kerala Story exposes the poisonous form of terrorism, which does not use bombs and ammunition.
A day before Tejasvi made the appeal, senior RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, after watching the movie in Mangaluru, told reporters that Hindu society, especially parents, should watch the movie. “Every Hindu woman should watch this movie with their families and understand the danger of love jihad,” claimed Prabhakar Bhat. He went on to say that society should not sit and watch when such kind of “injustice is being done to women”.
'The Kerala Story’ is an important movie documenting & reflecting social issues of our times, in Kerala & other parts of the country. It has a salient message for our young women.
— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) May 7, 2023
We are inviting young girl students of Bengaluru to join National President of BJP Sri @JPNadda Ji…
The Kerala Story is a film but it tells a lot about the new kind of terrorism where the youth is pushed towards terrorism.
— BJP (@BJP4India) May 7, 2023
It has nothing to do with a particular state or religion. It is a global story and must be watched.
- Shri @JPNadda pic.twitter.com/FpOAUkq8bi
On May 5, the day of the film’s release, PM Narendra Modi said during his campaign tour to Karnataka that the film is based on a terror conspiracy. “It shows the ugly truth of terrorism and exposes terrorists' design. Congress is opposing the film made on terrorism and standing with terror tendencies,” said PM Modi.
The film, meanwhile, has been condemned by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who called The Kerala Story a product of the Sangh Parivar’s “lie factory”. “Propaganda films and their otherisation of Muslims should be viewed in the context of various efforts made by the Sangh Parivar to gain an advantage in electoral politics in Kerala. Their usual tactics do not work in Kerala, so they are trying to spread their politics of division through the film based on fake stories,” he added.
Prior to the release of the film, fact-checking news portal Alt News had pointed out that the claims made in the teaser of the film that 32,000 women from Kerala were “converted and buried in the desert of Syria and Yemen”, is incorrect. The fact-checking site, after investigating the claims, said that the film is based on incorrect numbers and manipulated statements.