Ever since its trailer released earlier this week, The Kerala Story 2 has been trending everywhere in India, both at ground level and on social media. Its predecessoe, The Kerala Story, released in May 2023 and while these two films have nothing in common as far as the script goes, Kerala being depicted as the premise of the core plot is a connecting point.
Much like it was the case in 2023, The Kerala Story 2 is also drawing extreme criticism from the public with the trailer. The sequence where the protagonist is being forced to eat beef as a sign of Islamic conversion has understandably enraged the people of Kerala, so much so that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also come out all guns blazing with a barrage of attacks on the film.
A day after director Kamakhya Narayan Singh strongly defended his film and the plot, producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah has taken a far more conservative stance on the criticism. Speaking about the alleged controversy, Shah stressed on the importance of 'telling the truth' and appeared unfazed at the outrage.
"We're not after Kerala. Kerala is God's Country... We want this evil in that state to be eradicated as soon as possible," said Shah in a video released by ANI.
"Some people criticised the first film, claiming the 32,000 figure was false. We made a video on this figure on YouTube, which is currently available. We've added the name and shown the figures. The government must have even more figures than us, but we've never heard of any strict action being taken since the release of the film."
Currently, The Kerala Story 2 is slated to release next Friday (February 27), although a series of legal complications cannot be ruled out. Particularly in Kerala where the ruling government has already taken the legal option to counter the release of this film. What has irked Malayalees is the fact that incidents that have occurred across the country are being projected under the banner of Kerala.
Shah is confident that his film shall release smoothly without any issues. He also explained why the film has been titled as The Kerala Story 2, despite not being a direct sequel to The Kerala Story.
"Kerala Story 2 goes beyond Kerala and exposes the massive conspiracy of manipulative conversion going on throughout India. Because its central theme is the same as Kerala Story 1, we named it Kerala Story 2... Till now, there has been no threat to this film. When you are telling the truth, then perhaps you are not in that much danger because people feel that if we threaten a person who tells the truth, then there could be backlash."