The release of the Movie “The Kerala Story” kicked up a controversy
recently. The movie showing the darker sides of the proselytizing face of Islam
is bound to raise many dissenting voices. This is not unexpected in a society
where tyrants like Tipu Sultan are glorified. The movie centers around the
alleged religious indoctrination in Kerala and how Hindu and Christian girls
are being targeted by radical Islamic clerics. The film claims that these women
were converted to Islam and later sent to countries like Yemen and Syria, “to
fight for the cause of Islam”.
The liberals in Kerala which includes two major political parties who
are opposed to this movie stating that it spreads hate and false information
intended to defame Muslims and Kerala. One of their arguments in opposing the
movie is that the movie peddles a very big number as the women who have been
converted and sent to other countries to fight the religious war. They say that
the number is far less and not in thousands as alleged in the Film. Even the
liberals who are the campaign managers for the anti-India forces are not able
to outrightly deny it. Let us assume that the numbers are less as argued by the
liberals. Does it reduce the enormity of issue? The fact that these elements
are having a free hand in a culturally rooted state like Kerala to hoodwink the
women in the guise of Love, convert them to their religion for the sake of
Marriage, brainwash them in the name of imparting religious teaching and then
transport them to hostile territories which are not safe for even men, proves
that these fundamentalist elements are having enough scope and support in our
country to operate and carry out their designs. Whether the number is ten or
ten thousand, it is something to worry about. And this is not something that is
confined to Kerala alone. The borders of our cultural nation are breached and
we hear the sad stories from every other state.
There is a question which the Hindu society has to ponder about. How a
person who was brought up in a culture for twenty years, is made turn up
against it within six months or one year? They even go to the extent of working
against the country and killing their own brethren. Does this mean that the
campaign by the fundamentalists is so powerful and compelling? We have to a
soul searching here. Anybody in his sane
elements will reject these fundamentalist doctrines for their sheer absence of
Logic and its ruthless intention to hurt others who do not subscribe to their
point of view. Then what is that which lures them? What can our society do to avert this? The
absence of connect to their cultural roots and heritage is the main reason for
this. We have to groom our kids to be proud of our culture. This is an uphill
task, but a task of civilizational importance, because the narrative which is
popular among our youth make them shun all the symbols of our culture. It
starts from small things like the Bindi on the Fore head or our ethnic dresses,
or the rituals one should follow, to the Indian way of life, our medicines, our
art forms, our value systems. Our youth are ready to shun them for embracing
the alternatives from the west. This situation must be reversed. Swami
Vivekananda once said that, we must think hundred times before rejecting
anything from our culture and should think thousand times before accepting
anything from other cultures.
We as a society are duty bound to make them feel proud about their own heritage, because it is now or never.
V.V.Balasubramanian
YB-ET
