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Filmmaker Vipul Shah doesn’t see why religion is a point of concern in his latest controversial production The Kerala Story. At an event on Wednesday, the producer said every film has a villain and by extension, every villain has a religion. He wondered why a hullabaloo was being made only with The Kerala Story.
Released two weeks ago, The Kerala Story found itself in the middle of political storm when it began its campaign by claiming that it was sincerely chronicling true stories of more than 32,000 Kerala women, who’d allegedly been radicalised by Islamic fundamentalists. The makers later backtracked and changed the number to “three” after backlash and allegations of disinformation.
During a press conference, Shah was asked about the concerns that the film targets Muslim community. The producer, however, said that was a reductive way of looking at The Kerala Stroy and cited examples of Sholay and Singham 2 to make his point that the villains in those films belonged to a certain religion, but nobody took any offence.
“In Sholay, Gabbar Singh is the villain, but Ramesh Sippy saab isn’t against the Singh community. Every film talks about some bad people, but we don’t associate religion with them. In Singham 2, a priest is a villain, so was an attempt made to vilify the entire Hindu community? Not at all. That was one character. Our films have some characters who are terrorists. If we didn’t raise such questions during Sholay or Singham 2, that why are you targeting Hindus, then why this now?”
Shah, however, missed the basic point that religion is being discussed in The Kerala Story because the villains in the film use religious conversion as a means to trap young, gullible women. Gabbar Singh in Sholay was a ruthless dacoit, while Singham 2’s villain, ‘Babaji’ was a fake religious leader connected to high-profile corrupt politicians–neither of them weaponised religion.
The producer continued, that The Kerala Story was made with utmost care being taken that no community or religion is offended. He stressed that the team is only against “terrorists” and not any religion. The film stars Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Siddhi Idnani and Sonia Balani.
“Why aren’t we saying that the film is against terrorists, so let’s applaud it. We took a lot of care while making the film that we don’t go against any community or religion. We are only against those perpetrators and have shown only them. Every villain in every film belongs to some religion. So how many times did you raise this question? Why are we asking this question today and not directing our attention towards these girls? That’s the bigger question.”
The Kerala Story has already emerged as the second biggest Bollywood hit of the year, with collections over Rs 150 cr. But its release hasn’t been devoid of brickbats. In an interview with indianexpress.com, Tovino Thomas came down heavily on The Kerala Story, calling out its attempt to “generalise” the state and “giving misinformation”.
“32000, later they changed it, but in the first place why did they mention 32000? We all know that 32000 was a fake figure, now it has been changed to three. What does that mean? I don’t want to state anything but people will understand. I want people to stop believing blindly. Whatever it is, we all are human beings. We all have the same brain capacity, so stop believing anything blindly. Even if I say something, don’t believe it blindly. It is 2023, we are supposed to stop believing blindly and start thinking, rationalising. Don’t let anybody feed misinformation to you,” he had said.
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