KERALA REAL STORY WOMEN TOWARD ISIS
The Kerala Story, A Hindi movie which uncovers the truth behind the smuggling of Hindu girls to isis after being the victim of love jihad. Let’s talk more about this story in detail with this article
The Kerala Story is a 2023 Hindi-language movie that was produced and directed by Sudipto Sen. The plot centres on a group of women from Kerala who converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The film has come under fire for falsely portraying ISIS as recruiting hundreds of Keralan women and converting them to Islam.
It has come under fire from the opposition parties Indian National Congress and Communist Party of India for advancing the Sangh Parivar’s agenda and the far-right “love jihad” conspiracy theory.
Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani, and Siddhi Idnani are the movie’s stars. It was made public on May 5, 2023. Reviewers’ reactions to the criticism have been conflicted. It was the sixth-highest-grossing Hindi film of 2023 after making 45 crore in its first four days at the box office.
- Plot
Fatima Ba, a lady who converted to Islam, tells the story of her terrifying experience trying to fulfil her dream of becoming a nurse only to be kidnapped and forced into joining an extreme group. After being tricked into joining ISIS, she was imprisoned in Afghanistan.
- Premise
The Kerala Story is claimed as being based on a genuine story, yet there is no specific evidence to back up the veracity of the data provided.
The teaser, which was released on November 3, 2022, starred Adah Sharma as Fathima Ba, a Hindu Malayali nurse who converted to Islam and joined the ISIS before ending up in an Afghan prison. She asserts to be one of the 32,000 missing Keralan women who converted to Islam and were later recruited by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). These young women come from Christian and Hindu backgrounds. Since the alleged estimates are drawn from inaccurate representations of unrelated facts and are based on misunderstandings, they are generally untrue.
60 to 70 individuals from Kerala joined ISIS between 2014 and 2018, according to a 2019 investigation by the Observer Research Foundation. One of the lowest figures of any country with a substantial Muslim population was reported by the Indian government, which claimed that not more than 100 to 200 Indians have joined the group total over the years. The 2020 report on terrorism from the US Department of State lists 66 Indians who were affiliated with ISIS at the time.
The movie’s events appear to be based on four Keralan women who, between 2016 and 2018, converted to Islam and went to Afghanistan with their husbands to join ISIS.
They are currently being held there after surrendering in 2019 and were among a group of 21 individuals from Kerala who joined ISIS in 2016.
According to the movie’s creators, “love jihad”—a Hindutva conspiracy theory about non-Muslim women being courted and seduced into marriage in order to convert them to Islam—is a real-life incident that inspired the movie.
- Controversy
The only two political parties to have held power in Kerala since Independence, the Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), have opposed the film’s release on the grounds that it spreads false information among communities and advances the Sangh Parivar’s agenda to malign Kerala and advance the love jihad conspiracy theory. The film’s producer, Shah, responded to the accusations by saying that “nothing we say will be without evidence” and that Sen had done four years of study for the project.
The Kerala State Police Chief, Anil Kant, instructed the Thiruvananthapuram City Police to open an investigation based on a report from the Hi-Tech Crime Inquiry Cell of the Kerala Police after a journalist from Tamil Nadu complained to the Chief Minister of Kerala that false information was being spread about Kerala and that communal harmony was being destroyed. On 15 November 2022, a FIR was not filed as recommended by legal counsel. But as of November 9, 2022, the movie is being looked into.
The Kerala High Court declined to order a delay in the film’s release on the day of its release, arguing that the accusations made in the movie were addressed at ISIS and not at any particular faith.
The Supreme Court and the Madras High Court had previously rejected similar applications. The film’s creators consented to remove the contentious trailer, which asserted that 32,000 girls had been enlisted by ISIS.
Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, announced a ban on the movie on May 9, 2023, prohibiting theatres in the state from showing it. Later, Banerjee said that the choice had been made to preserve the state’s tranquilly and avoid any acts of violence or hate crimes. The movie’s producer replied that the group would pursue the necessary legal measures.
- Critics
The Times of India reviewer Abhishek Srivastava gave the movie three out of five stars, lauded Adah Sharma’s performance, and said that “the film feels more like a tutorial on radicalization than entertainment for the audience.” Additionally, it uses extreme measures to prove its point, which may be highly uncomfortable to spectators. The movie received a 0.5 out of 5 star rating from Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV, who called it “a lengthy WhatsApp forward in the guise of a movie which is far from reality.” They also condemned the acting and called the screenplay “cringe.”
- Box Office Collection
The movie has the fifth-highest opening day take in India for 2023 at 8.03 crore rupees.
