The Kerala High court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Central Board of Film Certification on a writ petition seeking a ban on Aami, a biopic on poet and author Kamala Das, reported The Hindu.
The petition, filed by Kochi lawyer KP Ramachandran, seeks to restrain the board from issuing a certificate to the the film, directed by Kamal and starring Manju Warrier as the legendary writer. Ramachandran has alleged that film was made with the intention of justifying love jihad and that the director had twisted and omitted details about Das’s life in the name of creative freedom.
“The conversion of Madhavikutty into Islam was the beginning of ‘love jihad’ in Kerala,” read the petition dated January 29, according to a Times of India’s report on Wednesday. “Love jihad is the grave menace the society now faces in Kerala.” The wrong picturisation of Das “justifying forceful religious conversion” would send the wrong message to viewers, the petitioner contended.
Das converted to Islam at the age of 65 and changed her name to Kamala Surayya.
The trailer for Aami, released in January, suggests that the movie will touch upon Das’ early life, her transformation into a popular writer and her eventual conversion. The film also stars Tovino Thomas, Murali Gopy and Anoop Menon. The biopic is the first attempt to portray Das’s feminist poetry and confessional writings in Malayalam and English on screen.
Kamal, in an interview in 2017, had said that Aami would not be a conventional biopic. “It will be a mixture of real-life and fictional situations,” he said. “The movie will not present a controversial image of Kamala Das in any way.”