MUMBAI: A Bollywood film about young Indian women recruited by the militant Islamic State group has sparked renewed controversy before India’s elections, with the opposition saying its screening on national TV could “sow seeds of religious animosity”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win multi-phase national elections that begin on April 19, partly thanks to his consistent wooing of the majority community.

The BJP has also fielded many actors in the elections, votes from which will be counted on June 4.

But Bollywood’s involvement in the election took a complicated turn on Friday night when The Kerala Story, set in the southern coastal state of the same name that is run by an opposition party, was aired on government-owned national broadcaster Doordarshan.

The small-budget movie, a surprise hit since its release last summer, follows three women who are indoctrinated and convert to Islam from Hinduism and are then sent to IS camps in Afghanistan.

Critics say the film incites negative sentiments against India’s Muslim community.

As Doordarshan is free for consumers, the channel reaches many homes right across the country.

“Doordarshan is not an agency to undertake communal campaigns for BJP candidates,” Kerala’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, said in a statement regarding the airing of the film.

“Secular Kerala will stand united in resisting such subversive attempts aimed at fostering communal discord.”

The Congress party also spoke out against the airing.

The federal ministry for information and broadcasting, which runs Doordarshan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A BJP minister said the screening had nothing to do with politics.

“A movie is a piece of art and the expression of art is guaranteed in the constitution,” V. Muraleedharan, a junior foreign minister who is also from Kerala, told reporters.

The BJP has little presence in many southern Indian states like Kerala but is keen to win more seats there in its bid to secure more than 400 in total for its coalition out of the 543 seats in the lower house of parliament.

The movie, which Modi has praised publicly, is among a string of Bollywood films released since last year and which have appealed to BJP’s Hindu nationalist base.

In the run-up to the vote, several nationalistic films, including a biopic on Hindu ideologue Vinayak Savarkar, have been released in theatres this year.

“Things are changing,” Randeep Hooda, who directed, produced and acted in the biopic, said. “It’s a different country; these are different times and therefore there are different movies being made,” he said, adding: “Nationalistic films have done well in the past.”

Another film, The Sabarmati Report, focuses on an incident where a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims in Gujarat in 2002, sparking one of India’s worst riots since 1947.

It is due to be released next month, in the middle of the nationwide voting period.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2024