Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday injected into the Karnataka Assembly elections The Kerala Story, a film whose teaser initially sought to suggest that 32,000 women in the southern state were converted and indoctrinated into terrorism.
Modi referenced the film and cited it to flag “a new face of terrorism” in spite of Kerala High Court saying that “we find that the producers have published a disclaimer along with the movie, which specifically states that the film has been fictionalised and is a dramatised version of events”.
"The film does not claim accuracy or factuality of historic events," the court added, quoting the disclaimer mentioned in a statement filed by the deputy solicitor-general of India.
Speaking at a rally in Bellary, Modi said: "In the past few years, a new face of terror, a diabolic face, has been born. Friends, the sound of bombs, guns and pistols will be audible. But there won’t be any sound of the terror conspiracy that seeks to destroy society from within. Even the courts have expressed concern about this face of terror. The film The Kerala Story is based on such a terror conspiracy. The Kerala Story is in the news these days. It is being said The Kerala Story is based on the terror conspiracy in one particular state."
Carried away by his own rhetoric, the Prime Minister unwittingly offered an insight into the sources of his information and scholarship, mixing up The Kerala Story and The Kashmir Files and completing a propaganda jigsaw.
"Such a beautiful state, whose people are so hardworking and talented. The Kerala Story film, the Kerala Files film, has exposed the designs of terrorists in such a state," Modi said.
Like The Kerala Story that hit the big screen on Friday, last year's The Kashmir Files had been widely described as Right-wing propaganda to vilify and demonise one particular community. While The Kashmir Files had claimed a genocide of Hindus, The Kerala Story plays on "love jihad", an unsubstantiated label, and purports to lay bare a plot to forcibly convert women in Kerala and make them join the Islamic State.
At the rally in Bellary, Modi attacked the Congress by linking it to the terror ideology. "Not just that, the Congress is engaged in political dealings through the backdoor with these terror forces. So the people of Karnataka need to be very careful about the Congress,” the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister may also have become the unofficial brand ambassador of the film. The film opened to a lukewarm response in Kerala but producer Vipul Shah said the film clocked an unprecedented record-breaking collection, becoming bigger by the passing hour.
Shah expressed happiness that none other than the Prime Minister had vindicated their stand that the film is against terrorism and not any community.
In Kerala, a large number of cinemas backed out from releasing The Kerala Story. The film was originally supposed to be released on 50 screens across Kerala, but only 17 theatres showed it on Friday.
Activists of Fraternity Movement, a Muslim youth organisation, held protests outside Shenoy’s Cinema in Kochi and Crown Theatre in Kozhikode on Friday after road marches in both cities.
Teaser off
Kerala High Court on Friday morning refused to stay the exhibition of the film on the grounds that it is not a historical movie and does not offend any particular community. The film's makers agreed to pull down the teaser from social media platforms.
When the bench of Justices N. Nagaresh and Sophy Thomas asked how the filmmaker had arrived at the figure that 32,000 girls from Kerala had been made to join the IS, the counsel said it was based on “some information we got”, but did not reveal the source.
He further stated that the figure of 32,000 was only mentioned in the teaser.
“The learned counsel appearing for Sunshine Pictures Private Limited submitted that the Company would withdraw the said teaser forthwith from their social media handles,” the high court bench said in the interim order.
Directed by Sudipto Sen, the film had first triggered a controversy last year when its first teaser was released on YouTube. It claimed that 32,000 non-Muslim girls had been lured, converted and radicalised in Kerala as part of an alleged IS plot.
But the filmmaker could not produce any evidence to back up the number, drawing sustained criticism from non-BJP parties, many of whom offered a reward of up to Rs 1 crore for evidence to substantiate the claim. Another promotional of the movie put the number of girls who had joined the IS from Kerala to three.
After watching the trailer of the movie, the high court on Friday refused to allow the plea for a stay order, pointing out that none of the petitioners had watched the film. “Going through the trailers of the movie, we find that trailers do not contain anything offensive to any particular community as a whole,” the court said.
Advocate Rakesh K, who filed the pleas for Thamanna Sultana and Abdul Razack from Kerala, told The Telegraph that the court passed an interim order allowing the screening of the film but gave aggrieved parties the option of approaching the Central Board of Film Certification if they found anything objectionable or offensive.
“The filmmaker, in an undertaking given to the court, ensured that the teaser will be withdrawn,” Rakesh said.
