Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
‘The Kerala Story’ has indeed gone too far, caught in a quagmire of controversies and confusions. More so, after the Apex court pronounced a stay order in the ban of the movie in West Bengal the issue got into a spiraling mess.
Distortion of facts, use of violence, scenes of outrage are the points the maker of the film has allegedly resorted to pander to certain whims.
The three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha and JB Padriwala also cautioned the producers against any form of “distortion of facts.”
One thing that has emerged that freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1) of the Indian constitution at the same time, the legal apparatus should ignore the aspects of ‘hate’ being used as a weapon to sow the seeds of fear and unrest.
The Kerala Story is based on alleged forced conversion of women from the state of Kerala into Islam and their subsequent induction into terrorist organisations like the ISIS.
There is a huge inner contradiction as the movie was promoted with ostentatious claims about unearthing the tragic stories of about 32,000 women, was subsequently found that it were all fiction and premised on exaggeration.
While revoking the immediate fetters to the screenings, the court also upbraided the producers for distorting facts on the movie and instructed them to add a disclaimer that there is no factual backing to the claim that 32,000 women were converted and all depictions of the movie are fictionalised versions of true events.
Now it has become a compulsive matter that whether such safeguards offset the plausible communal hatred that the film might stir by portraying a work of fiction under the garb of “real testimonies”?
Defending the ban, the state of West Bengal had highlighted that while the movie is not banned from private exhibition – that is, on television or OTT platforms – it has been banned from public viewing in the interest of perceived threat to public order.
The state also argued that such a decision was taken post release, after gauging the impression of the initial viewers.
A belated disclaimer
An inordinately delayed disclaimer, to be added by 20 May, almost a month after the release of the film, absolve the perception of hatred and mistrust it has already created amongst the audience? Will a disclaimer be effective in debunking the initial impression created by the trailer or will it be a blink and miss token of legal compliance?
Perhaps the writ petition is still sub judice, so the last order merely reverses the ban in West Bengal. While this is a welcome development, which upholds the right to freedom of expression, this shouldn’t be interpreted to exonerate the allegations of manipulation and misrepresentation levelled against the film.
Be it the ‘Kashmir Files’or now the ‘Kerala Story’ it is worth a thinking if such movies were intended as propaganda to please some and generate a fear among the rest cannot entirely be left to the audience. But there should be some social scrutiny.
