{"id":55621,"date":"2023-06-01T17:59:45","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T08:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jun\/01\/bollywood-hit-kerala-story-islamophobic-bjp"},"modified":"2023-06-01T17:59:45","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T08:59:45","slug":"ignore-any-lofty-claims-about-the-bollywood-hit-the-kerala-story-this-film-will-only-incite-hatred-against-muslims-asim-ali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=55621","title":{"rendered":"Ignore any lofty claims about the Bollywood hit The Kerala Story: this film will only incite hatred against Muslims | Asim Ali"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The controversial film championed by the BJP is an Islamophobic fantasy<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks after I was born in the curfewed town of Aligarh, in Uttar Pradesh, the Aligarh riots of 1990 broke out. What began as skirmishes exploded into widespread bloodletting after <a href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/publication\/the-production-of-hindu-muslim-violence-in-contemporary-india\/\">three leading<\/a> Hindi daily newspapers published front-page headlines reporting the targeted killing of Hindus inside a hospital run by Muslims. Those killings turned out to be the <a href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/southasia\/publication\/the-production-of-hindu-muslim-violence-in-contemporary-india\/\">fevered imaginings<\/a> of two Hindu \u201ceyewitnesses\u201d. But the actual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1990\/12\/10\/world\/muslim-hindu-riots-in-india-leave-93-dead-in-3-days.html\">massacres<\/a> ignited by this fake news eventually left about a hundred people <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1990\/12\/10\/world\/muslim-hindu-riots-in-india-leave-93-dead-in-3-days.html\">dead<\/a>, the vast majority of them Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>A fortnight ago, I watched the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/nov\/09\/india-police-investigating-film-portrays-kerala-islamic-terrorism-hub\">new Bollywood hit The Kerala Story<\/a>, in a rundown cinema in Delhi. The sluggish air conditioning seemed to have given up against the sultry May heat. A group of (largely) young Hindu men packed out the theatre. Occasionally, they broke out into passionate chants of \u201cJai Shri Ram\u201d, the cry that often accompanies videos of \u201cvigilante violence\u201d committed against Muslims. Yet when they streamed out of the theatre, they looked more horrified than enraged, like sports fans numbed after their side has taken one beating after another. The rolling spectacle of an all-round \u201cHindu humiliation\u201d \u2013 including graphic scenes depicting Hindu women being violently raped by Muslims \u2013 had lasted for more than two hours.<\/p>\n<p>Asim Ali is an independent political researcher and columnist based in Delhi<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2023\/jun\/01\/bollywood-hit-kerala-story-islamophobic-bjp\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The controversial film championed by the BJP is an Islamophobic fantasyTwo weeks after I was born in the curfewed town of Aligarh, in Uttar Pradesh, the Aligarh riots of 1990 broke out. What began as skirmishes exploded into widespread bloodletting aft&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3769,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[516,62,447,371,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hinduism","category-india","category-islam","category-religion","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55622,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55621\/revisions\/55622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}