Muslim activists can’t cancel The Kerala Story

Britain’s cinemas are in danger of becoming the new front line of protests from angry religious mobs demanding the cancellation of any film that meets with their disapproval. The latest disturbing example of this form of attempted censorship by diktat came when angry Muslim protesters disrupted the screening of a controversial Bollywood film in Birmingham on Friday. Their target was The Kerala Story, a film which portrays the southern Indian state — where just under a third of the population is Muslim — as a hub of Islamist terrorism and forced religious conversions. It has been condemned by some critics as crude Hindu nationalist ‘propaganda’ aimed at destroying ‘religious harmony’. Maybe, maybe not. But surely this is something that cinema audiences are entitled to decide for themselves. 

The film has been dogged by controversy from the beginning. A trailer claiming that it tells the ‘heart-breaking and gut-wrenching stories of 32,000 females’ joining Isis was withdrawn after criticism that it was exaggerated, even though the filmmakers maintain their claims are based on years of research.