Fear and alterity in The Kerala Story (2023): affective politics and the construction of Muslims in contemporary Indian cinema

The article explores how the film The Kerala Story (2023) functions as a site of mediated political discourse, and harnesses affect, spectacle, and a fear-based storyline strategically framed as fact to normalise majoritarian sentiment. It interrogates the representation of Muslims in a tale that depicts young women caught in a web of deceit, religious conversion, and radicalisation. It treats the film as a vehicle that channels a broader discursive framework of sectarian hostility. The analysis draws on the director’s interviews, narrative framing, and selected film scenes to identify three interlinked dimensions of fear and demonstrates how the film mobilises emotive appeals that have the potential to deepen communal divisions and harden religious identities along Hindu-Muslim lines. Rather than limiting the analysis to the question of whether the film’s Muslim stereotyping is inherently Islamophobic, the article examines how such portrayals align with, reinforce, and amplify a prevailing political ideology and majoritarian dogma within its narrative universe. Its artistic choices are structured to invite audiences to categorise Muslims as a civilisational threat within and beyond the fictional world.