Why The Kerala Story Is Facing Criticism But Has An Exceptional Box Office Collection

Why is the recently released film The Kerala Story facing so much criticism but showing an exceptional performance at the box office.

Director Sudipto Sen’s movie The Kerala Story has been facing heavy criticism since the trailer was released, and when the film hit theatres, the ruckus started. The Adah Sharma-starrer film, ‘which questioned and highlighted the alleged conversion of thousands of Hindu women to Islam in Kerala,” has been at the centre of controversy ever since its teaser took place on the internet on November 20, 2022.

But why is the film facing criticism from the political party while only a story has been shown in front of the audience?

So let’s know about its entire story.

Propaganda

Critics of the film have called it propaganda by the ‘Sangh Parivar’ who work under the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu right-wing organisation. The critics also claimed that Sudipto Sen’s film was created with the aim of destroying the communal harmony of Kerala.

A day after the theatre owners’ association in Tamil Nadu announced that the film would no longer be screened, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday, May 8, that The Kerala Story would be banned in the state. And even after that, there was a lot of ruckus, and filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri sent a legal notice to Chief Minister for calling his film, The Kashmir Files, a propaganda film.

In the meantime, the movie hasn’t received a warm welcome in the state on which it is based. The Kerala Story is still playing in the state, despite Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of Kerala, making a statement against it before it was released.

The Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, had issued a statement against the release of the film despite the fact that the story of Kerala is going on in the state, without any support.

But despite facing so many criticisms and problems, the film is doing exceptionally well at the box office.

Then why is there a demand to ban the movie?

The movie’s main narrative is what has drawn criticism, according to critics. A Hindu girl named Shalini Unnkrishnan is shown in the movie’s trailer being misled and seduced into Islam by her Muslim companions. She is converted to Islam and given the new name Fatima Ba.

Actress Adah Sharma’s portrayal of Fatima asserts that in addition to her, almost 32,000 other girls from Kerala have been converted to Islam and sent to Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan to join the terrorist group ISIS, or the Islamic State.

The film raises serious questions about the alleged religious indoctrination in the state of Kerala and the way that radical Islamic clerics are allegedly converting Hindu and Christian women to Islam before sending them to join ISIS in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria to fight for the cause of Islam.

The film claims to have traced the whereabouts of 32,000 missing women from the state of Kerala.

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