Does 32,000 Figure Touted By Kerala Story Filmmakers Stand Up To Scrutiny? Data Reveals Contrary

Over the past ten years, according to the makers of the "The Kerala Story," 32,000 women from Kerala's Hindu and Christian communities have vanished and have been trafficked to countries like Syria and Afghanistan. These women have been sold as sex slaves to terrorist organizations like ISIS.

The filmmakers imply that "love-jihad," a right-wing conspiracy theory, is to blame for this. As per this idea, Muslim males use sophisticated schemes to seduce Hindu women into romantic relationships with the ultimate goal of converting them to Islam.

Claim:

The claim of 32,000 women being converted into Islam was circulated by RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya. The claim reads, “Fatima became a girl from Shalini!! How did a girl who became a nurse become an ISIS terrorist?

The film "The Kerala Story" is bringing the story of 32,000 women who were forcibly converted to Islam and made ISIS terrorists!!”

Other users shared the teaser for the film with similar captions.

Film analyst Joginder Tuteja, entertainment writer Haricharan Pudipeddi, movie analyst Sumit Kadel, Complete Cinema's editor Atul Mohan, film correspondent Rajasekar, and actor Aroh Welankar all shared the teaser on Twitter further spreading the viral claim.

Fact Check:

We conducted a keyword search for the comments on the 32,000 girls converted by the filmmaker.

The filmmaker behind The Kerala Story, Soudipto Sen revealed the details of his calculations in an interview with Citti Media on YouTube. As per Sen, the figures were based on a statement made by the former chief minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, to the Kerala Assembly.

"The Chief Minister of Kerala was Oommen Chandy. He presented a report to the Kerala Assembly. In 2010 Oommen Chandy presented a case being said that every year approximately 2800 - 3200 girls are being converted to Islam. If you multiply this number, 2800 to 3200, by 10, you get an astonishing 32,000 to 33,000 girls being converted,” he can be heard saying in the video at the 10.30 mark.

We then conducted a keyword search for Chandy’s comments on the alleged converted women which led us to a report by India Today titled, ‘Over 2500 women converted to Islam in Kerala since 2006, says Oommen Chandy’ published on September 4, 2012.

“On June 25, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy informed the state legislature that 2667 young women have converted to Islam in the state since 2006,” the India Today report said. However, Chandy mentioned that there was no evidence of forced conversions in the state and the fears about love jihad were baseless.

We also came across Chandy’s reply which he provided in June 2012 in Malayalam. The quantity of conversions in the state since 2012 was the subject of the inquiry. Chandy responds that 2,803 people changed to Hinduism and 7,713 people converted to Islam. His response is not divided along gender lines. Click here to view.

In the next section of the question, specific information is requested regarding the number of women who converted, their original and final religion, and their caste (if applicable). According to the response, 2,687 women have embraced Islam, 2,195 of whom were Hindu and 492 were Christians. 79 young women were known to have converted to Christianity between 2009 and March 31, 2012. Meanwhile, eight women converted to Hinduism at this time.

We then checked the sources that shed a light into the spread of ISIS in Kerala. Firstly, we checked the 2019 study on Kerala's role in ISIS recruitment in India by the Observer Research Foundation.

According to this survey, there are 180 to 200 ISIS pro-IS cases reported in India, whereas the Union Ministry of Home Affairs places the number at 155. However, it is noteworthy that Kerala had the most number of these persons, where 40 of these instances were from Kerala. The paper makes the case that this can be linked to Kerala's propensity for such radical ideology and teaching, as well as Kerala's relationship with the Middle Eastern nations.

The ORF research outlines the causes of Kerala's high ISIS recruitment rates. It mentions that language is one among them. ISIS has taken to the use of regional tongues like Malayalam and Tamil, which have generally been disregarded by organisations like Al-Qaeda, which concentrates on Urdu, according to the research. The ease with which residents of Kerala can travel to the Middle East is also highlighted in the report; Kerala has four airports and the most short-haul flight destinations in the area.

However, this report says nothing about how "love-jihad" is used to traffic or smuggle women abroad. Despite the fact that the producers claim it has been going on for 12 years, they don't give a time frame estimate.

Taking a look at NCRB data, while they do publish information on both the women and children who have been rescued and the women and children who have been trafficked, they do not do so along religious lines.

In our Fact Check, we also found that there were 66 fighters of Indian descent known to be associated with ISIS as of November 2020, according to the United States Department of State's Country Reports on Terrorism 2020.

Additionally, the US Department of State published its report, titled "Trafficking in Persons 2022," which examines all types of exploitation motivated by human trafficking.

India is classified as a tier-2 country in all of these assessments, indicating that it falls short of the minimal requirement for the abolition of human trafficking but is making progress in doing so. The 2022 research claims that internal trafficking is India's biggest concern, not exterior trafficking. The main offender in this case is bonded, underpaid work. In India, there are 8 million trafficking victims, the bulk of them are bonded labourers.

As per the Hindu report published on June 11, 2021, a senior government official told The Hindu that it seems unlikely that the four Indian women who are currently detained in an Afghan prison and who joined the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) with their husbands will be permitted to return home.

The report noted that in the years 2016 to 2018, the women, who are all from Kerala, traveled to Nangarhar in Afghanistan. They lost their husbands in various assaults in Afghanistan. In the months of November and December 2019, many members of the Islamic State and its affiliates turned themselves in to Afghan police.

We also came across a report by The Week published on June 12, 2021, the four women are Sonia Sebastian alias Ayisha, Raffeala, Merrin Jacob alias Mariyam and Nimisha alias Fathima Isa. They surrendered to Afghan authorities in November 2019 and had traveled to Nangarhar in Afghanistan between 2016 and 2018. So technically, out of four women, two were Christians and only one woman was Hindu before joining ISIS.

Further highlighting discrepancies in the figure of 32,000 women forcibly converted into Islam, we came across an article by Scroll published on May 3, 2023. The Scroll report notes that in the film's latest trailer, the description notes that it is a “compilation of the true stories of three young girls”.

The description of its teaser uploaded on YouTube in November claimed that the film was about “heartbreaking and gut-wrenching stories of 32,000 females in Kerala”.

We also came across a report by The Quint published on May 3, 2023, titled, ‘32,000 an Arbitrary Number': Director Sudipto Sen on 'The Kerala Story' Row’. When questioned on the 32,000 figure, Sen said it was "cliched" to ask questions about it.

"I don't think by putting up these questions, you'll make any difference. It is very cliched. You watch the film, you write about it. I request you not to take answers from me. I will not comment,” said Sen in the Quint report.

But addressing a crowd during a screening at JNU on Tuesday, the filmmaker said that "the number doesn't matter" and that "even if one girl faced this, the story needs to be told."

Fact Checking website Alt News spoke to The Kerala Story director Sudipto Sen regarding the figure shown in the trailer. He said, "Oommen Chandy, the chief minister of Kerala, had placed this number in the state assembly. So this is not my number, I have got all the documents with me." In another conversation with Alt News, he said, "Let the intolerance reach a crescendo. I’ll share my data after the film is released. Why should I defeat the cause of my film?”

Conclusion:

In conclusion, we discovered that Sudipto Sen, the filmmaker of "The Kerala Story," has frequently asserted—without providing any supporting evidence—that 32,000 women had joined ISIS from Kerala. The actual number of 'Indian-origin fighters linked with ISIS' is likely much lower than that, according to data from reputed sources. The figure of 32,000 is exaggerated and not based on established data sources.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

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