On 24 July 2010, at a press meet held in New Delhi, then Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan made stinging remarks on the now-outlawed Popular Front of India, along with an alarming proposition – that the outfit aimed to convert Kerala into a Muslim-majority within the next 20 years by luring non-Muslims with money and through conversions. The genesis of Sudipto Sen’s The Kerala Story, set to release on 5 May, lies in this very statement.
However, as the saying goes, context is everything, and one needs to put the veteran comrade’s startling remarks in perspective. It was only earlier that month, on 4 July 2010, that PFI cadres carried out a Taliban-style attack (cross amputation of the right hand and left leg as prescribed in the Islamic Sharia) on a professor in Kerala, accusing him of demeaning the Prophet. The sheer terror unleashed by this act on the Kerala society was unparalleled, and Achuthanandan was invoking the duplicity of the same PFI’s Independence Day ‘freedom parades’.
The outlandish figures of a ‘true story’
Despite some calls to ban the film for spewing hate, The Kerala Story – dubbed a true story – has been issued an ‘A’ certificate by the censor board with a few tweaks, including the deletion of the ex-CM’s remarks, which were reportedly used in the film. What makes these ‘true story’ claims worse is the outlandish figures – of 32,000 Kerala women converted to Islam and trafficked – getting bandied about, without any evidence to back them.
According to Sen himself, the number has been arrived at (by wrongly) multiplying a figure quoted by another ex-CM, Oommen Chandy, on the floor of the Kerala assembly in 2012, where he had revealed that 2,667 women had converted to Islam over a six-year period (2006-12). The trailer of the film, which was released on 26 April, describes it as a “compilation of the true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala”, a climbdown of sorts. Sen himself has been going around giving bytes to the media – seemingly at variance with his own previous statements – making the most of the free publicity.
Sen is a repeat offender in this case. And he seems to have become obsessed with the story of women getting trafficked from Kerala to the Islamic State. Back in 2018, Sen made a documentary titled In the Name of Love!, which mentioned a similar figure of 32,000 women getting trafficked from Kerala and Mangaluru to ISIS and Taliban-dominated areas abroad.
Beyond the outrageous figures, which we shall revisit, Sen is merely resurrecting the bogey of ‘Love Jihad’, which was first floated in Kerala as ‘Romeo Jihad’ 25 years ago.
Genesis of ‘Love Jihad’
Unlike the popular belief that the coinage had its origins in coastal Karnataka in 2007, the term Love Jihad/Romeo Jihad first made it to the press in October 1998, on the front page of the Kerala Kaumudy daily.
Vadayar Sunil, then a reporter and now coordinating editor, recalls writing the story after accessing a state intelligence report. Jacob Punnoose, who was the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) – North Zone, told me that “there was a pattern to some incidents”, which made the police draw such a conclusion back then.
The Love Jihad theory got mainstreamed in Kerala in 2009, when the sensational case of a Christian and a Hindu woman eloping with their college senior from Pathanamthitta made headlines. Punnoose had become the Director General of Police (DGP) by then and gave two affidavits in the case, which ruled out Love Jihad, despite Justice KT Sankaran adjudicating the case finding merit in the theory.
Punnoose recalled that the women, both MBA students, were first drawn to Islam, after which their marriages were quickly facilitated to ensure they wouldn’t have to go back to their parents. “Where is the question of love here?” he asked. This is reminiscent of the much-publicised Hadiya case, where Akhila alias Hadiya was first drawn to Islam and later found a partner facilitated by AS Sainaba, who headed PFI’s women’s wing.
In an earlier era, Kerala was famous for inter-faith campus love stories culminating in lifelong alliances, which were considered progressive. And it was only organic for a cosmopolitan state with its renaissance movement and high indices to go down this road. However, as with the rest of the country, a lot of things changed post 1992, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the subsequent growth of PFI.
The Love Jihad theory was later resurrected in Kerala in June 2016 and gained widespread currency when it came to light that 21 people – including Merin Jacob alias Mariam, Sonia Sebastian alias Ayesha and Nimisha alias Fathima – had left for ISIS after undergoing conversion and radicalisation.
Also read: How Kerala church’s ‘love jihad, narcotics jihad’ taunts are hurting Muslim businesses & society
Lies, damned lies and statistics
So, how many women from Kerala have joined ISIS or disappeared altogether?
According to Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, out of the estimated 100 Keralites who joined the terrorist outfit, only 28 people had left Kerala directly to join ISIS, while another 72 had taken the Hijra, or flight to the ‘Caliphate’, after going for work in the Persian Gulf and other countries. That being the case, it puts the outrageous figure of 32,000 (that too of converted women!) in context and exposes the mischievous attempt of the filmmakers to cast Kerala as a fertile recruiting ground for terrorists.
While some would say that even 100 Keralites getting radicalised is a number too many, it is a minuscule minority of the total population. It only goes to show how the state managed to stave off the danger. That the global Malayali came on the ISIS radar before the terrorist outfit cast its net far and wide to the rest of India is but natural.
Thus, The Kerala Story will most likely end up as a tool for the Right-wing to portray the state in a bad light – a case of sour grapes. As for the Love Jihad theory being advanced by the movie, it has been 13 years since Achuthanandan made the stunning statement in New Delhi’s Kerala House premises about PFI’s plan to convert Kerala into a Muslim-majority state. It would seem that the extremist outfit failed miserably in realising it, with its ban coming about only last year.
The author is a Kerala-based journalist and columnist. He tweets @AnandKochukudy. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)