Justice For All Statement and Analysis on the Release of “The Kerala Story”

India’s film industry, Bollywood, is becoming notorious for inciting hate against Muslims by producing films that stereotype and depict Muslims as dangerous and as threats to India’s national security. It has clearly become lucrative for the film industry to boost Hindu nationalism by reinforcing the ruling BJP party’s narrative that Muslims are a threat to Hindus. A recent box office movie, The Kashmir Files, enjoyed immense popularity amongst Hindutva fans. A large number of film critics, Kashmiri Muslims, and others have described it as propaganda that inflames hatred against Muslims and distorts events to suit the ruling party’s Islamophobic agenda. The movie falsely depicts Kashmiri Muslims as complicit in an ill-perceived unproven genocide of the region’s Hindu Pandits. After viewing the movie, Hindutva fans chanted anti-Muslim slogans and promised to wreak vengeance against India’s Muslims.

A few days ago a movie titled The Kerala Story was released. The plot follows the story of a group of women from Kerala who were “forcibly converted” to Islam and joined ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). The movie is fictitious, but the filmmakers falsely claim otherwise. The Youtube trailer initially claimed 32,000 women from Kerala were inducted into ISIS and subsequently altered the number to just three women, which is evidence enough that there has never been a mass induction of young women from Kerala into ISIS.

The state of Kerala has always rejected Prime Minister Modi’s party’s divisive politics and has instead encouraged inter-religious harmony. Justice for All is deeply concerned that this movie will undermine the tolerance and harmony that exists between Muslims and Hindus in Kerala.

Justice For All strongly opposes the storyline used in The Kerala Story. Films such as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story will only further sow discord between Muslims and Hindus in India. Prime Minister Modi’s supporting statements on the film provide a strong indication that his party stands to benefit from its false storyline.

Below is Justice For All’s short analysis of the timing of the release and the storyline.