The Kerala Story

 

The Kerala Story is a 2023 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 converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The film has courted controversy for falsely claiming that thousands of women from Kerala were being converted to Islam and recruited into ISIS. Critics and the Congress Party have castigated it for promoting the love jihad conspiracy theory, and the agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

The film stars Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani, and Siddhi Idnani. It was released on 5 May 2023. Critical reception from reviewers has been poor.

Fatima Ba, a woman who converted to Islam, shares her harrowing journey of aspiring to become a nurse, only to be abducted from her home and coerced by extremist groups. She was eventually manipulated into joining ISIS and ended up imprisoned in Afghanistan.

Production and release

The film was produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah, who is also the creative director of the film. It was released in theatres on 5 May 2023.

Cast

Adah Sharma as Shalini Unnikrishnan / Fatima Ba

Yogita Bihani as Nimah

Sonia Balani as Asifa

Siddhi Idnani as Geetanjali

Devadarshini as Shalini's mother

Vijay Krishna

Pranay Pachauri

Pranav Misshra

 

Premise and factual accuracy

The Kerala Story is captioned as being based on a real-life incident, while the reliability of the statistics shown are not backed by any real evidence.

The teaser, released on 3 November 2022, featured Adah Sharma playing the character of Fathima Ba — a Hindu Malayali nurse — who had converted to Islam and joined the ISIS, before ending up in an Afghan jail. She identifies to be one of the 32,000 girls, from the Hindu and Christian communities, who are missing from Kerala and have been recruited to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after being converted to Islam. The claimed figures are widely inaccurate, being based on mistranslations, misquotes and extrapolations from misrepresentations of unrelated statistics.

The Observer Research Foundation in a 2019 report notes that about 60 to 70 individuals had joined ISIS from Kerala between 2014 and 2018. According to Indian government figures not more than a total of 100 – 200 Indians had joined the organization over the years, one of the smallest figures of any country with a substantial Muslim population. The US Department of State in its 2020 report on terrorism had documented that there were a total of 66 individuals from India who were affiliated with ISIS at that time.

The events portrayed in the film seem to be inspired by four women from Kerala who converted to Islam and traveled with their husbands to Afghanistan to join ISIS between 2016 and 2018. They were part of a 21-member group from Kerala to join ISIS in 2016, remain incarcerated in Afghanistan since surrendering in 2019.

The makers of the film have claimed that the film is the true story of an instance of "love jihad" — a Hindutva conspiracy theory about non-Muslim women romanced and lured into marriage to convert them to Islam.

Box office

On its opening day, the film grossed ₹8.03 crore in India, making it the fifth highest opener in India for 2023.

 

Opposition

The Indian National Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the only two parties to have governed the state since Independence, have objected to the release of the film, alleging that it propagates communal misinformation and promotes the agenda of the Sangh Parivar to defame Kerala and propagate the love jihad conspiracy theory. In response to the allegations, the producer, Shah stated that "nothing we say will be without evidence" and that Sen had conducted four years of research for the film.

After a Tamil Nadu-based journalist filed a complaint with the Chief Minister of Kerala, stating that false propaganda was being spread against Kerala and communal harmony was being destroyed, the Kerala State Police Chief, Anil Kant, directed the Thiruvananthapuram City Police to register a case based on a report by the Hi-Tech Crime Inquiry Cell of the Kerala Police. On 15 November 2022 an FIR has not been filed based on legal counsel's advice. However, as of 9 November 2022, the film is under investigation.

On the day of the film's release, the Kerala High Court refused to stay the release of the film, stating that the allegations made in the film were about ISIS, and not directed towards any particular religion. Similar applications had also been rejected previously by the Supreme Court and the Madras High Court. makers agreed to take down the teaser, which had made the controversial claim that 32,000 girls were recruited by.

On 9 May 2023 the Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee announced a ban on the movie, preventing theatres in the state from screening the film. Banerjee later said that the decision was taken to maintain peace in the state and prevent any incidents of violence or hate crime. The film producer responded by stating that the team would take the required legal action..

Abhishek Srivastava reviewing for The Times of India rated film 3 out of 5 stars, praised acting of A.dah Sharma and wrote "the film feels more like a tutorial of radicalization than entertainment for the audience. It also goes to extremes to make its point, and that could be quite unsettling for audiences" as criticism. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated film 0.5 out of 5 stars and termed the film as a "lengthy WhatsApp forward in the guise of a movie which is far from reality'" they also criticised acting in the film and termed writing as "cringe". Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express rated the film 1 star out of 5 star and wrote "The film itself is nothing but a poorly-made, poorly-acted rant which is not interested in interrogating the social complexities of Kerala".

Anuj Kumar of The Hindu reviewed film and wrote "Adah Sharma’s performance marred by half-truths and an emotionally exploitative gaze"; he criticised Sen and wrote "Sudipto Sen’s treatment is guided more by local politics than cinematic sagacity".