The Real Kerala Story

Hindu temple, Muslim mosque, and Christian church in Thiruvananthapuram

The Kerala Story 2 strives to portray the state of Kerala in a poor light with respect to certain religious issues. One particular religious community is the obvious target like in its predecessor too. Both parts of the movie are concerted efforts from a North Indian right-wing lobby to sow the seeds of sectarian hatred in a state where Hindus (55%), Muslims (27%), and Christians (18%) have been living in exemplary harmony until Modi’s party came to power at the Centre.

What happened in the capital of the state yesterday is yet another example of the harmony that binds the three communities in Kerala. The capital witnessed the celebration of a Hindu festival known as Attukal Pongala in which thousands of Hindu women assemble on the streets near the Attukal Temple and cook their holy offering to the goddess. This is an annual event and though it blocks the entire traffic of the area for a whole day nobody complains. On the contrary, the Catholic church and the Muslim mosque in the area open their gates to the Hindu pilgrims and offer them food and water as well as shelter from the blazing sun. This happened yesterday too.

This is the real Kerala story. A story of communal harmony.

The BJP has been doing whatever in its power to disrupt that harmony without resorting to the openly violent methods that the party employs in the North. There are many reasons for the subtlety in approach. One is the strong political presence of the leftists who won’t tolerate any religio-political nonsense in the public spaces of the state. Secondly, the state’s population is far more educated than in the North and hence explicit violence won’t sell here.

So the BJP has resorted to subtle propaganda on the social media. There are hundreds, if not more, of handles which are blatantly counterfeit and are meant for perverting the good atmosphere in the state.

One example. Sreevidhya Vinod on Facebook promotes BJP and its politics in quite subtle ways. The handle has 11,000+ followers. It describes itself as “entertainment news website” and “Personal blog.” The profile picture of Facebook’s Sreevidhya Vinod, however, is that of Athira Neenu on Instagram. This Athira has 68,200+ followers and describes herself as “Papa’s lovely daughter” and “Beautiful girl.”

This is just one example. Instagram seems to be a fertile breeder of the snaps required for fake accounts on Facebook and X. And we get all sorts of right-wing balderdash through them. The real “lovely daughters” and “beautiful girls” of Instagram may not be aware of what their images are doing on other social media.

The latest offer on FB and X is a portrayal of Modi as the Ultimate Saviour of India. When the whole world is on war or is going to be, Modi will keep India out of it because he has a divine mandate or some such thing – Facebook was awash with such messages in Malayalam yesterday, from various accounts. Look at an example below. What the post says: “When the world is at war, Indians are able to sleep in peace because of Modi. Right?”

Since we started with the Attukal Temple, let us also end with that. The goddess of that temple is believed to be an incarnation that fought for justice and truth. Her rage over the injustice perpetrated against her husband is said to have burnt down the entire city of Madurai. Sometimes rage is not only ethical but also divine. I’m left longing for some such divine rage to descend on the world.