DD national

New Delhi: Hours after the Kerala high court refused to stay the telecast of The Kerala Story by Doordarshan (DD National), the communally sensitive film was aired on the channel on Friday, April 5 evening in the state.

The 2023 film, claimed to be based on a true story from Kerala, promotes the Hindutva conspiracy theory of ‘Love Jihad’ – according to which the Muslim community is deploying attractive Muslim young men to seduce Hindi women and convert them to Islam so that India eventually becomes a Muslim-majority country. Since the film’s Islamophobic content proved controversial at the time of the film’s release, a political row broke out in Kerala as soon as the Union government controlled DD National channel decided to beam it in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), driven by its Hindutva ideology, is aiming at a third straight win at the Centre.

News reports said activists from the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s youth wing, Democratic Youth Federation of India, “attempted to storm the precincts of the Doordarshan Kendra in Thiruvananthapuram on April 5 demanding that the national broadcaster rescind its decision”.

Not just the CPI (M) but the Opposition Congress too slammed the screening of the pro-Hindutva film in Kerala, calling it an “insult to the people of Kerala”.

“Hours before the film was aired at the scheduled 8 pm slot, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan demanded that DD cancel the telecast. A petition was filed in the Kerala High Court to stop the screening, but the court didn’t issue an (interim) order, saying DD should have been given more time to respond,” reported the Times of India.

The report also underlined that both the leader of the opposition in the Kerala Assembly, V.D. Satheesan, and CPI (M) state secretary M.V. Govindan, shot off letters to the Election Commission of India, alleging that the telecast of the communally biased film was at the ruling BJP’s behest and “meant to appease a certain section of people ahead of the (general) elections”.

Also read: ‘The Kerala Story’ Is a Propaganda Film That Thrives on Shock Value

Congress MP from the state Shashi Tharoor called DD’s decision to air the film in the election season “propaganda at its cheapest and worst”.

On April 5, hearing the petition filed by K.G. Suraj from Thiruvananthapuram seeking a directive to DD not to telecast it till the elections are over, the Kerala high court refused to pass an interim order to that effect. The petitioner had stated in his appeal that the party in power at the Centre wants to create bias in the minds of voters before the crucial elections.

However, the court, by refusing to stay its telecast, cleared the decks for DD to air it on April 5 evening as scheduled.

The court has posted the next hearing on the case on April 11.

New Delhi: India’s public broadcasting agency, Prasar Bharati has initiated disciplinary proceedings against an assistant director of programme in Chennai, R. Vasumathi for allegedly failing to telecast a speech by PM Modi live on DD Podhigai.

On September 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a speech at the Singapore-India Hackathon 2019 held at IIT Madras’s research centre in Chennai.

The order, which does not explicitly state the reason for her suspension, merely conveys that a disciplinary hearing has been initiated against Vasumathi and that she will be placed under suspension as per the Central Civil Services Rules (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965, according to a report in the NewsMinute.

The report also cited a top source at Prasar Bharathi as saying that Vasumathi’s decision not to telecast part of the Hackathon was ‘wilful insubordination’. “She failed to telecast the speech live despite having been instructed to do so explicitly,” a source in Prasar Bharathi told the NewsMinute.

Also read: Why Prasar Bharati Continues to Remain Bereft of Real Power

On September 30, of the three gatherings that Modi addressed in Chennai, DD Podhigai telecast two of the events live while only a part of the Hackathon was telecast. The channel had carried a live telecast of the PM’s address to BJP supporters at the Chennai airport. The prime minister later felicitated the winners of the second edition of the Singapore-India joint hackathon held at IIT Madras and then attended the 56th annual convocation ceremony of IIT Madras as the chief guest.

Another source told the NewsMinute that the PM’s office has enquired as to why the PM’s speech had not been telecast live but was instead carried as a ‘news item’. While one official claimed that the crew at DD Podhigai did not receive the requisite permission to go live, another official said that the as per norms, DD National had telecast the speech live.

Upon being asked if the suspension in question was a harsh reaction to the incident, a source told the NewsMinute that the “government does not look at suspension as a punishment, and this is part of a process as the inquiry goes on”.

Speaking to The Wire, Shashi Shekhar, CEO of Prasar Bharati said, “It would not be appropriate for me to comment on internal administrative matters”.