The Kerala Story 2 review nobody asked for | LME 119 | Pooja Prasanna

The movie started at 10:12 am. It ended at 12:27. Yes, I noted the time, because when you sit through The Kerala Story 2, you begin measuring your life in minutes lost and ideological decibels endured.

Yes, we took one for the team.  

First question: why is it called Kerala Story 2? Of the three “case studies,” one is set in Kerala, one in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, and one in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. 

The movie opens with the subtlety of a hammer to the skull. A bald woman hangs in Kochi. In Jodhpur, a dog discovers a woman’s body. We are told solemnly, the movie is ‘inspired by true facts’. 

Then we meet the trio: a free spirited Malayali woman from Kochi, a Dalit woman who is a  javelin thrower from Gwalior with national dreams, and a 16 year old dancer and rising social media star from Jodhpur.

Three states. Three daughters. One underlying thesis: this is what happens when fathers are progressive.

Because let’s be clear. The only villain here is not just the Muslim men and women with ominous background music playing during namaz scenes. 

The other antagonist is the Hindu father who is modern, dotes on his daughter and gives her too much freedom.

Making Kerala story 2 must have been pretty simple:

The director seems to have worked off two lists.

I will come back to the list. But before that, it's the start of a new month, the perfect time to subscribe to The News Minute.

And if a monthly subscription feels like too much, just think of it this way: I saved you from watching the movie. Consider this your ticket price.

Like Pooja’s LME? Support the show: https://rzp.io/rzp/support-lme

If you are watching from abroad, click this link:https://buy.stripe.com/28o01q9md0OPdtm8wR

So what were the two lists that Kerala Story 2 director Kamakhya Singh probably carried with him?

List one: What to justify

WhatsApp University
Islamophobia
Bulldozer justice
The idea that Hindus are permanent victims in India

List two: What to belittle

Secularism
Progressive parenting
Hindu parents who don’t indoctrinate their children
Liberalism
Middle-class Hindus who reject right-wing fanaticism
Indian laws that allow consenting adults to convert
And the biggest target of all: Kerala

There is simply no reason this film needed to be called Kerala Story 2. In fact, the so-called “Kerala case study” is the one where a woman is force-fed beef, and the makers cannot even claim it is “inspired by a true story” there.

There is something deeply sinister about choosing a state where many Hindus eat all kinds of meat, and then locating a coercive beef-feeding story there.

The next question before the director would have been: How do you bring the lists together?

Simple. Romance.

The romances begin innocently, as they must in all morality tales about civilisational collapse.

In Jodhpur,  a girl dances, and a man films her appreciatively. 

He proposes. He critiques her religion as outdated goddess worship. He promises wealth through sexy reels.The girl who is an influencer tells her parents, “Don’t touch my phone. It’s my privacy. This is my career.” 

In Kochi, a married man assures his girlfriend he will divorce his wife and that he “does not believe in all that conversion stuff.” 

In Agra, a Muslim man pretends to be a Hindu, and promises to stand by the woman who wants to represent India in Javelin throw  

Then comes the reveal. Every single Muslim male character is part of a coordinated conspiracy. 

We see offices with banners saying “Ghazwa e Hind 2047.” 

Maps. Strategy talk. Lines delivered with straight faces: “We will not leave a single unmarried Hindu girl.” “By 2047 there will be Sharia in India.” “We are changing the demography of Europe.” 

There are rate cards. Six lakhs for a Dalit woman. Twelve lakhs for a Brahmin.

It feels like the most unhinged WhatsApp forward was turned into a movie. 

Wait, it was a WhatsApp fwd.

This list, according to Alt News, first started doing the rounds in 2010. 

Some ‘news channels’ even reported it as an exclusive in 2016.  am

Owing to inflation I guess, the moviemakers have increased the rates now

Then comes the violence. Because when you lack script, storyline, creativity, you compensate with noise and brutality.

Women are beaten, raped, locked up, force fed beef, tied up, put up for prostitution, and even killed. 

Muslim women are not bystanders in this universe. They are enthusiastic accomplices. They smile at torture. They block escape routes in coordinated burqa formations. There are no conflicted relatives. No dissenters. No vigilant neighbours. Just seamless, choreographed cruelty.

In Jodhpur, Divya marries Rashid and is relocated into a household that appears to be the HQ of all villains. The mother in law wastes no time. “Make sure you put at least five or six children into her belly.” With the subtlety of a bulldozer. 

In the Agra story, the Muslim man’s mother- who is also a pimp- tells her son that there is a great demand for Hindu women in their mohalla. 

Bottomline

The entire Muslim community wants to subject Hindu women to all forms of violence. 

Even prayer scenes come with ominous background scores, in case you accidentally interpret namaz as devotion rather than an act of revenge.

Meanwhile, the parents flail helplessly. 

They approach the police. Lawyers. They produce documents proving their daughter is a minor. The response? “The law, meaning the Constitutional right to convert, is on their side.” Democracy, apparently, is also in on the conspiracy.

Attempts to mobilise other Hindus fail at first. “Hindus have been divided for a thousand years,” Translation: unity is overdue. Unite against Muslims

The symbolism is not shy. A lone Hindu girl framed against a cluster of burqa clad women. 

A Hindu father physically restrained by caricatured Muslim men. 

What makes this sequel more unsettling than the first is many may find it slightly better made. The background score is stronger. The sound design is sharper. The rage is better packaged.

In both films, the blame shifts quietly and then loudly to Hindu families themselves. The girls fall into traps because they were not taught their faith strongly enough. Because their fathers were too liberal. Because their homes were too disconnected from tradition.

But the movie truly gets dangerous in the end

As the bulldozer makes its heroic entry. The Muslim perpetrators are brutally beaten up in police stations. “Hindu society wakes up,” the film declares. Organise. Consolidate. Stop being secular.

The film does not offer a single Muslim character with hesitation, complexity, or humanity.  

The movie does not distinguish between crime and community. 

It does not acknowledge that interfaith marriages exist without tragic consequences.

Instead, it constructs a world where every Muslim, man, woman, elderly, is a cog in a sinister machine targeting ambitious, outspoken Hindu girls and the fathers who dared to trust them.

The film claims inspiration from real events. 

Yes, real crimes do exist. Real tragedies do occur. 

But here, incidents are woven into an omnipresent conspiracy where suspicion is framed as the only rational response.

For suggestions and feedbacks, write to lme@thenewsminute.com

‎Follow the Let Me Explain channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbDIedz2phHLQZTyNj1W

Like Pooja’s LME? Support the show: https://rzp.io/rzp/support-lme

If you are watching from abroad, click this link: https://buy.stripe.com/28o01q9md0OPdtm8wR

Become a TNM subscriber- https://www.thenewsminute.com/subscription

Produced by Megha Mukundan, Script by Pooja Prasanna, Camera by Megha Mukundan, Edit by Nikhil Sekhar ET