'Kerala Story' Intends Communal Polarisation; Legal Action Will Be Taken, Says CM Pinarayi Vijayan

While the demand to ban the controversial film Kerala Story is gaining momentum, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has responded to the matter.

Pinarayi Vijayan said that the trailer of the film "Kerala Story" indicates that it is following Sangh Parivar propaganda. The Chief Minister stated that at first glance, it seems that the hate campaign against Kerala has been deliberately and intentionally created with the aim of communal polarisation. He also said that legal action would be taken against anti-social activities. The Chief Minister's response was through Facebook.

The trailer of the Hindi movie "Kerala Story", which at first glance seems to have been deliberately produced with the aim of communal polarisation and spreading hate propaganda against Kerala, was released the other day. The hint from the trailer is that this movie is taking on the Sangh Parivar propaganda by placing Kerala, the land of secularism, as the centre of religious extremism, Pinarayi Vijayan said.

Propaganda films and the marginalisation of Muslims in such films should be viewed in the context of various efforts made by the Sangh Parivar to gain an advantage in electoral politics in Kerala.

To use "love jihad" allegations as a theme is part of the planned move. "love jihad" is something which was dismissed by investigating agencies, courts and even the Union Home Ministry.

G. Kishan Reddy, then Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and still Union Minister, replied in Parliament that there is no such thing as love jihad. Yet in the film, this false allegation is made the main story premise only because of the eagerness to humiliate Kerala in front of the world. Sangh Parivar is trying to destroy the atmosphere of religious harmony in Kerala and sow poisonous seeds of communalism.

Parivar politics in other places does not work in Kerala, so they are trying to spread politics of division through the film based on fake stories. The Sangh Parivar is spreading such myths without the support of any fact or evidence. In the trailer of the movie, we could see the hoax that 32,000 women in Kerala had converted and became members of the Islamic State. This bogus story is a product of the Sangh Parivar's lie factory.

Justifying those who use cinema only to create sectarianism and division in the country in the name of freedom of expression is not right. Freedom of expression is not a licence to communalize this country, spread lies, and divide people. It is requested that the Malayalis reject communal and sectarian movements altogether. Everyone should be vigilant against communal attempts to spread unrest in society through false propaganda. Legal action will be taken against anti-social activities, Pinarayi Vijayan added.

The Kerala Story is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language film directed by Sudipto Sen and produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. The plot follows the story of a group of women from Kerala who are converted to Islam and enlist with the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The film has courted controversy for portraying itself as a real story and for making false claims that thousands of women from Kerala are being converted to Islam and recruited into ISIS. The film is expected to release on May 5th.