Pinarayi Vijayan calls ‘The Kerala Story’ a product of Sangh Parivar’s factory of lies

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan lashed out at the movie The Kerala Story in a Facebook post, calling it a product of the Sangh Parivar’s factory of lies.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan lashed out at the controversial upcoming movie The Kerala Story in a Facebook post on Sunday, calling it a product of the Sangh Parivar’s factory of lies. He said that legal action would be taken against those involving themselves in antisocial activities.

The Chief Minister’s statement comes at a time when the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) and their youth organisations have all opposed the movie in a united voice.

“A glance at the trailer gives the impression that the movie was deliberately produced with the aim of communal polarisation and spreading hate propaganda against Kerala. By placing Kerala, the land of secularism, as the centre of religious extremism, it is repeating the Sangh Parivar’s propaganda. Propaganda films and the othering of Muslims should be viewed in the context of various efforts made by the Sangh Parivar to gain an advantage in electoral politics in Kerala,” he said.

Mr. Vijayan said the allegations of ‘love jihad’ were dismissed by Central investigating agencies, courts and even the Union Home Ministry. G. Kishan Reddy, then Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, had replied in Parliament that there was 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. The Sangh Parivar is trying to destroy the atmosphere of religious harmony in Kerala and sow poisonous seeds of communalism,” he said.

The Chief Minister said that the Sangh Parivar is attempting to take forward its divisive politics using fake stories through such films as its methods, which were successful in other places, did not work in Kerala. It 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 factory of lies. Justifying those who use cinema only to create division using the argument of freedom of expression is not right. Freedom of expression is not a licence to communalise this country, spread lies and divide people,” he said.