MUMBAI: Just before India’s elections, a Bollywood movie portraying young Indian women who are recruited by the extremist Islamic State organization has stirred new controversy. The opposition claims that the movie’s national TV premiere could “sow seeds of religious animosity.”
The majority population has consistently been courted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is generally projected to win the multi-phase national elections that start on April 19.
Votes from the BJP’s several candidates in the elections will be tallied on June 4.
However, Bollywood’s role in the election took a convoluted turn on Friday night when the government-owned national broadcaster Doordarshan played The Kerala Story, a film set in the same-named southern coastal state that is ruled by an opposition party.
Since its debut last summer, the low-budget film has been an unexpected hit. It centers on three women who are transferred to IS camps in Afghanistan after being indoctrinated and switching from Hinduism to Islam.
Critics claim that the movie stirs up prejudice against Muslims in India.
Since Doordarshan is free for users, a large number of homes are connected to the channel nationwide.
In a statement on the movie’s premiere, Kerala’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, stated, “Doordarshan is not an agency to undertake communal campaigns for BJP candidates.”
“Secular Kerala will unite to oppose such subversive attempts that incite division among the community.”
The Congress party expressed opposition to the broadcast as well.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by Doordarshan’s parent organization, the federal ministry of information and broadcasting. According to a BJP minister, politics had no bearing on the screening.
“A film is an artistic work, and the constitution guarantees the freedom to express one’s creativity,” Kerala-born junior foreign minister V. Muraleedharan told reporters.
Although the BJP is not well-known in several southern Indian states, such as Kerala, it is eager to gain more of these seats in order to increase the coalition’s total number of members in the lower house of parliament from 543 to over 400.
The film, which Modi has publicly complimented, is one of many Bollywood productions that have been popular with the Hindu nationalist base of the BJP since their release last year.
Several nationalistic films, including a biopic on Hindu philosopher Vinayak Savarkar, have been released in theaters this year in the run-up to the election.
Randeep Hooda, who produced, directed, and acted in the biopic, stated that “things are changing.” He stated, “There are different movies being made because it’s a different country and these are different times,” noting that “nationalistic films have done well in the past.”
One of the deadliest riots in India since 1947 was caused by a supposed Muslim mob that set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims in Gujarat in 2002. This episode is the subject of another movie, The Sabarmati Report.
It is scheduled for release in the midst of the countrywide voting session, which is next month.
