The Kerala Catholic Youth Movement (KCYM) unit of the Thamarassery Diocese of the Syro Malabar Church has postponed the screening of the controversial movie The Kerala Story, which was scheduled for April 13, following the growing protest against it.
“We have postponed the screening for a date after the general elections since the issue is being overly politicised at the moment and that was never our intention,” Fr. George Vellakkakudiyil, Director of KCYM, Diocese of Thamarasseri, told The Hindu in Kozhikode . “Some units of the KCYM have been screening the movie for some niche audience. However, we will not do a formal announcement until after the elections,” he added.
The 2023 movie directed by Sudipto Sen was one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of the year, despite a majority of the critics characterising it as a work of Islamophobic propaganda.
The movie was opposed by the Kerala government for its alleged efforts to portray the State in a bad light and the alleged factual errors in it which the state and critics termed were meant to create communal divide.
The movie once again came into the limelight after the State-owned Doordarshan screened it, kicking up a series of debates and protests in Kerala. Further, the Idukki Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church screened it for the students in its catechism classes, claiming it was a study material warning students to be cautious as they fall in love.
The KCYM under the Thamarassery Diocese decided to follow in the footsteps of the Idukki Diocese recently and scheduled a formal screening of the movie on April 13, which has now been postponed.
However, the protests intensified in the backdrop of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, with the left-wing politicians terming it as a sign of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s influence on the church.
