The plot of the upcoming film The Kerala Story 2 revolves around the two-decade-old conspiracy theory about a Jihadist scheme to marry Hindu women and convert them to Islam. The first film in 2023, which claimed that 32,000 women had been converted by Jihadists in Kerala, was hauled up by the Supreme Court for putting out fake data.

Even though the premise of the sequel remains the same, the producers claim that this time they have spent seven months on “research”.

For months, we have been researching religious conversions in Kerala and have uncovered remarkable facts.

It turns out that Hinduism has been attracting the largest number of converts in Kerala – not Christianity or Islam. Our earlier story in the series pointed to the existence of a statewide network of Hindutva groups, including the Vishva Hindu Parishad, focused on converting Dalits to Hinduism.

We sifted through more than 10,000 pages of the Kerala Gazette to find that 365 Keralites converted to Hinduism between January and December 2024. Of these, 262 were Dalit Christians and Muslims, many of them induced by the promise of securing the Scheduled Caste status upon conversion to Hinduism.

Every act of religious conversion has to be notified in the state gazette, as per law. Our data has been compiled by counting each individual case of religious conversion notified in the gazette.

In 2024, the second-highest number of conversions was to Islam. A total of 343 people converted from Hinduism and Christianity to Islam. Meanwhile, 255 people joined Christianity.

A section of the Christian establishment in Kerala has played a key role in amplifying the narrative of Love Jihad in these last 20 years. However, when government gazette data is examined, the claims made by right-wing Christian groups appear inconsistent.

In 2024, only 67 Christians converted to Islam, of whom 42 were women. At the same time, 234 Hindus converted to Christianity, including 130 women. Additionally, 21 Christians converted to other denominations of Christianity, among them 13 women.

Conversion patterns have remained broadly similar over the past several years, with Hinduism emerging as the biggest gainer.

According to the official 2020 data from Kerala, Hinduism recorded the highest number of new converts, accounting for 47% of registered religious conversions. Of the 506 individuals who formally declared a change of religion through the government gazette process, 241 converted to Hinduism.

TNM also found through interviews with multiple women across the state that the narrative of mass, forced conversions continues to upend lives.

Angel*, who is from northern Kerala, had just completed her graduation when her family discovered she was in love with a Muslim man who was her senior at college. What followed, she said, was not concern but punishment.

“They took me to retreats, counselling centres… there was emotional blackmail, physical abuse, everything. I was locked up for months,” she recalled.

The couple gave notice to marry under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, in a different district where the man had an address. That legal choice, meant to protect interfaith couples, instead became the trigger for a campaign of intimidation.

“After seeing the notice, some people approached my family and said I would be recruited into ISIS. After that, everything escalated and another round of torture started. One day I eloped with him,” Angel said. Soon, relatives and people from the church tracked down the couple’s hiding place.

“They beat us badly and dragged me home. I wasn’t even planning to elope. The torture forced me to do it,” she said.

A parish priest told her she was a victim of ‘Love Jihad’, a claim repeated to justify months of confinement, counselling sessions, and pressure to abandon her relationship.

“Neither my partner nor I had any plans to change our religion. He knew I was spiritually attached to Jesus, he respected that. Our plan was always to get married under the Special Marriage........

© newslaundry