‘The Kerala Story’ must not become ‘The India Story’

I watched ‘The Kerala Story’. I am not a movie critic to express my views on the cinematic points of the movie but I will share my views on the topic of the story and the need for us Indians across religious communities to open our eyes to the threat of Islamic radicalism.

I do not hate Muslims and more importantly neither do I believe that every Muslim is a radical or leans towards terrorism, even though most terrorists arrested globally have been followers of the Islamic faith.

It is not right for us to see every Indian Muslim through the prism of our hatred for Islamic radicalism. Some people opine that there are no moderate Muslims. I grew up in an Islamic nation. I did not grow up being victimized by the Arabs, because I belonged to a different nationality or religious faith, even though at times you could as an expatriate from the Indian sub-continent witness the impact of Arabisation or Emiratisation. People lived freely, following the laws of the land and respecting the religious beliefs of the Islamic nation.

I lived my growing up years in the Middle East safe and secure without religious conflagration. I did not witness Islamic extremism personally or in the society.

I have friends who are devout Muslims and good humans too from all over the world. We agree on some issues and we disagree on several issues but at most times we agree to disagree.

Not every Muslim I know is an Islamic radical. However, I must share this opinion with you, I found radicalism to be most in the converted Muslims in the Indian sub-continent or in African nations, while, unfortunately for the converts, the Arabs Islamists consider Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Myanmar Muslims to be second-class believers of the Islamic faith.

It is sad to see that it is poverty that leads to the brainwashing of most poor Muslims of the Islamic faith in their regions that become pawns for Islamic radicalism and terrorism. Kashmir is a case in point. Once a bedrock of the Sanatan Dharma faith got brutalized by Islamic radicalism.

To be brutally honest, I hate Islamic radicalism and Islamists blinded by it. But I am most disappointed with those Muslims who remain quiet when Islamic radicals unleash terror on other faiths because, sadly, the curse of Islamic radicalism has destroyed innocent Muslims too, who maintained a see-no-evil hear-no-evil approach to the terrorist operations of Islamic radicals.

In the recent investigations conducted by NIA into the terror sympathizing organization Popular Front of India (PFI) that has been banned in India. NIA filed two chargesheets against a total of 68 Popular Front of India leaders, cadres, and members in two separate cases in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They were raising funds to perpetrate terror activities and establish Islamic rule in India by 2047.

NIA investigation revealed that PFI was most active in the two states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu where the many rank-holders of the party were part of criminal conspiracies to create a wedge between people of different communities through radicalization of impressionable Muslim youth, providing them with training in handling of weapons, and raising funds for carrying out acts of terror and violence.

Over the years in my writings, I have often expressed my fear that after the brutal nature of Islamic radicalism, India witnessed and continues to witness in Kashmir, especially culminating with the torture, rapes, and killing of Kashmiri Pandits and the forced exodus of Hindus from Kashmir in 1990; Kerala would be the next state under the radar of Islamic radicals.

The Kerala Story exposes the brutal truth of Islamic radicalism and its tentacles in Kerala. Islamic radicalism is a virus and it spreads viciously in society. It first devours the Muslims and then turns its focus to Hindus and Christians. It needs bodies to impregnate with its ideologies and its needs an army of soldiers to take forward its intent of Islamic nations.

Renowned author Christian C Sahner, Christian C Sahner, associate professor of Islamic history and Fellow of St Cross College at the University of Oxford, opined that Islam spread across the Christian world via the bedroom. He stated:

In world history, there are a few transformations that are more profound than the conversion of the people of the Middle East to Islam. Starting in the early Middle Ages, the process stretched across centuries and was influenced by factors as varied as conquest, diplomacy, conviction, self-interest, and coercion. There is one factor, however, that is largely forgotten but which played a fundamental role in the emergence of a distinctively Islamic society: mixed unions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

For much of the early Islamic period, the mingling of Muslims and non-Muslims was largely predicated on a basic imbalance of power: Muslims formed an elite ruling minority, which tended to exploit the resources of the conquered peoples – reproductive and otherwise – to grow in size and put down roots within local populations. Seen in this light, forced conversion was far less of a factor in long-term religious change than practices such as intermarriage and concubinage, Sahner reasons in his book released in 2018, ‘Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World’. 

The virus of Islamic radicalism has one primary objective whether, in India or Europe or Africa, or the Americas, their intent is to convert the population to the Islamic faith or Shariah Law.

Islamic radicalism needs soldiers, sex slaves, and baby-producing machines to produce more soldiers. The Islamic radicals have realized that it is a good strategy to radicalize young Muslim girls and boys with hate for other religions. While in Europe and the US, that hate is directed towards Christians. In India, that hate is directed towards Hindus first and then Christians. The hate is so potent that it cannot distinguish between humanity and diabolic behavior.

India witnessed a Kashmir. India is witnessing a Kerala. Islamic radicalism is slowly growing in India. PFI is just one off-shoot of this madness. In Kashmir, there was Jamaat-e-Islamia that was banned but Ahle-Hadees was overlooked. Over the years, Ahle-Hadees with its strong Islamic doctrine in Kashmir has continued its Islamic radical intent with funding coming in from countries like Turkey and other Arab nations. Kerala too gets its funding from Arab nations and sometimes the Islamic radicals go unchecked because of their work-carriers in the Middle East.

PFI will be banned but another will come up in its place. It has happened before. Islamic radicals will not relent. It wants to turn India into an Islamic nation by 2047. The trump card is to get Muslims to play victims in India under the guise of being minorities and get political parties to favor policies of minority appeasement. They hide behind the Indian Muslims, who are content playing the minority card and forget that India is also their land to protect.

Islamic radicalism is slowly spreading across India. We do see spurts of it rearing its ugly head but we have not yet witnessed the eruption of its full potential. Delhi riots were just an attempt to test the waters.

Islamic radicalism gets protection from political leaders that need religious conflict to burn in India. Some political leaders like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee are a case in point. She has banned ‘The Kerala Story’ citing the law and order problem. I wonder what would be a law and order problem. Does she intend to indirectly opine that Indian Muslims are all ISIS followers because the movie focused on ISIS and not Indian Muslims? Politicians like Mamata Banerjee are real radicalised Indians, who keep quiet when Hindu women in the state are raped but cry law and order problem over a movie exposing Islamic radicalism.

The Kerala Story must not become The India Story. We need to be alert because Love Jihad is an operational strategy to destabilize India slowly.