Grave insult: Pinarayi Vijayan on 'The Kerala Story' winning national awards

Hours after Sudipto Sen's controversial 2023 flick, The Kerala Story, was honoured with two notable accolades at the National Film Awards on Friday, sharp reactions poured in from top Kerala leaders, with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan calling the decision a "grave insult" to the state. He accused the jury of toeing the RSS ideology of "hate".

The Kerala Story, weaved around a plot detailing the alleged religious conversion of women in Kerala and recruiting them for terrorist outfit ISIS, bagged the coveted awards for Best Director for Sudipto Sen and Best Cinematography for Prasanthanu Mohapatra as the Centre announced the winners across various categories on Friday.

"By honouring a film that spreads blatant misinformation with the clear intent of tarnishing Kerala’s image and sowing seeds of communal hatred, the jury of the #NationalFilmAwards has lent legitimacy to a narrative rooted in the divisive ideology of the Sangh Parivar," the Kerala Chief Minister wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

He said that Kerala is a land that has always stood as a beacon of harmony and resistance against communal forces, but it has been "gravely insulted" by this decision.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader called on not just Malayalis, but everyone "who believes in democracy", to raise their voice in defence of "truth and the constitutional values we hold dear".

The Congress MP from Kerala's Alappuzha, KC Venugopal, echoed Vijayan's views about the honour the movie was bestowed upon and said that since it took forward "a rotten agenda", it must be "discarded to a dustbin", claiming it maligns the state and its culture.

"The Kerala Story movie deserves to be in the dustbin. It peddles a rotten agenda and maligns my beautiful state of Kerala. This movie getting the national award is the most perfect example of how the BJP sponsors and promotes hate from the highest echelons of government," Venugopal wrote on X.

"Kerala will never ever tolerate this insult it has received from the government of its own country. The loving, welcoming and brotherly people of Kerala will punish the BJP so hard that they will not even dream of gaining any acceptance for generations to come," the Congress MP added.

Meanwhile, VD Satheesan, the Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala Assembly, slammed the BJP government in the Centre, accusing it of running hate propaganda and fanning communal tensions.

"The BJP govt has reduced the National Film Awards to a tool for hate propaganda. Giving #TheKeralaStory an award is a clear attempt to fuel communal hatred—totally unacceptable. Their divisive agenda thrives on lies about #Kerala, aimed at gaining political mileage," Satheesan tweeted.

The Kerala Story created ripples across the Indian political spectrum upon its release in 2023 as it claimed cases of "Love Jihad" (religious conversion) were rampant in the state and women were being sent to countries like Iraq and Syria to join ISIS, a theory vehemently opposed by several opposition parties, especially the CPI(M) and the Congress.

- Ends