When Manipur is in turmoil, when people are crying for the protection of their lives and property, we are looking at the real face of the government that “functions”.

Less government and maximum governance was the narrative pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Recently, people of Manipur could neither see government nor governance. When the country was burning in the Northeast, the Prime Minister was ploughing the southern state of Karnataka hankering for votes.

For the BJP, capturing power is the only concern. Pointing to the all-pervasive corruption, people call the Karnataka government “40 per cent rule”. The BJP government has anti-people measures like the 12-hour working day to its credit.

The Prime Minister and his team of campaigners were certain that voters would reject them on the basis of their performance. Thus, as part of their consistent strategy, the Prime Minister devoted his time and energy in firing up communal hatred. The shrewd politician in Modi did not utter a single word on the Manipur crisis. Instead, he thundered about the new favourite film of the RSS, The Kerala Story, to target the Opposition.

In unleashing attacks on the Congress and the Left, the Prime Minister was glorifying The Kerala Story. With all his force, he was equating Islam and terrorism with preconceived notions. The mission of the filmmakers who are camp followers of the RSS is the same. The Prime Minister, true to his ideological moorings, chose to fly with the birds of a feather.

However, what the Prime Minister, BJP campaigners or the makers of The Kerala Story are trying to peddle is farthest from the truth. Their Kerala story is not the real story of Kerala. The real Kerala story is woven with love and respect. The people of Kerala, who are the makers of the real Kerala story, have always maintained harmonious relations irrespective of religion and caste.

Those great people have always kept forces of religious extremism, whether Hindu, Muslim or Christian, away from their day-to-day lives.

The real Kerala story has elevated the state to top-ranking positions in all human development indices. Kerala’s stout refusal in giving any space to the BJP is the subject of the RSS-BJP’s ire. That is why they manufactured The Kerala Story to depict an unreal Kerala with vengeance and malice towards its people.

Mussolini and Hitler’s love for cinema and its propaganda value is the RSS-BJP’s guidebook in this case. Both Mussolini and Hitler implored filmmakers to manufacture cinema aligning with their political aims. The propaganda movie is based on completely baseless claims, fake news and Islamophobia with the intent to malign the image of the real Kerala and divide people on religious grounds.

The makers of the film first claimed to unearth the story of 32,000 Muslim women who went missing in Kerala, purportedly after forced or lured conversions and later joined the Islamic State. When the people questioned their ridiculously exaggerated number, they cooled down the number from 32,000 to a mere 3. That itself shows the hollowness of the RSS brand of the “Kerala story”.

The intent was solely to show Kerala in poor light irrespective of the truth. That such a farcical narrative, which could not stand the scrutiny of facts even for a minute, is being endorsed and promoted by none other than the Prime Minister is telling. Truth is being made disposable in the country of Mahatma Gandhi.

The movie uses the so-called “love jihad” as a means to convert women to Islam. However, “love jihad” remains a baseless Islamophobic conspiracy theory aimed at polarisation and those who raise this bogey have never been able to back it even with a shred of evidence.

The Union home ministry led by Amit Shah told Parliament through MoS G. Kishan Reddy on February 5, 2020, that no cases of “love jihad” had been reported.

Despite the rejection of this theory by the BJP government itself in Parliament, the lie factory of the RSS is working overtime to make people believe in “love jihad”.

Similarly, the number of Indians joining the IS as fighters is not more than 200. It’s apparent that the narrative being propelled by The Kerala Story is clearly based on lies and twisting facts and aims at fuelling hatred. People of Kerala in general have opposed this politically motivated attempt to slander the state in a united voice.

Here comes the crucial question of responsibility. Who should be responsible if fallacy, masquerading as truth, results in discord and riots? It is true that the current government controlled by the RSS has no regard for our Constitution, the values enshrined in it or the truth. Still, a government in a democratic polity is responsible for creating awareness so that fake news and hateful propaganda should not be taken as the truth.

While a ban on the movie was demanded, many democratically minded people also pointed out that banning may not be the best way forward. When the government is shirking its responsibility, it comes to all of us to reach the masses with facts and educate them to differentiate between political propaganda and truth.

We must ensure that the bonds between people must be strengthened so that no volume of propaganda and malevolent fiction is able to create a wedge between them. People should be wary, the Prime Minister himself is recklessly fuelling passion and divide while another part of the country is in flames.

One limb of the nation is burning and the supposed caretakers are busy putting fire to another. Let it register that when the entire nation is concerned about the turmoil Manipur is going through, the occupant of the highest office is garnering votes by maligning another state and demonising a community.

The “double engine” of hate and divide is dissecting the country. Harmony and peace are the victims. The crisis of our country is that the government has turned solely into the BJP’s election machinery, for which The Kerala Story is another plank to divide people.

At this critical juncture, critical questions of education, health, poverty, inequality and corruption are sinking in the din of lies.

If these forces of deceit are to be defeated, education and solidarity are the most effective weapons with the masses. If the captain is relentless on sinking the ship, it is on us to take the wheel and sail towards peace and progress.

Binoy Viswam is the secretary of the CPl National Council and a Rajya Sabha member