Sudipto Sen’s film The Kerala Story has brought forth the conspiracies of Islamic conversion into public discussion. Many victims themselves are coming forward and telling their stories. Anagha Jaigopal and Vishali Shetty are two such women who narrated their experiences of conversion and coming back to the Sanatana Dharma. They described in detail their experience and testified that the film depicts the reality of what is happening in not just Kerala or other states in the country but across the globe.
Story of Anagha Jaigopal
Anagha Jaigopal hails from Ernakulam in Kerala. She was brainwashed by her classmates and colleagues. She said, “I was a victim of intellectual jihad and not the one shown as love jihad in this film. But love jihad exists. It of course exists. My conversion story starts from 2013-2014. Shalini Unnikrishnan – the main character in the film The Kerala Story – faces many questions like exactly how many gods we have, why we worship these types of gods, etc. I used to face similar questions from my roommates and colleagues etc. I used to keep silent at that time as I could not answer these questions. When I asked those questions to my parents, they were also unable to answer them. They told me that we are following these practices because our forefathers have done so. I was not satisfied. I sought more clarification on social media. There also I did not get any convincing answers. So I thought that there is no point in Hinduism.”
She further said, “This is the first step they are taking for the conversion. Because the first step is to ask these questions and they will confuse you. At this step, they will start deciding your religion and at that step even if you stay silent and don’t answer, they will start slowly the brainwashing process. In the second step, they started criticising my religion. At that time also I couldn’t counter their questions with any answers. So they slowly told me that Islam is the real path and Allah is the only god and they told me about the Prophet Mohammad and Quran etc. And also they told me that in Islam it is told that a woman should be dressed like this and this. Then she will be saved from the hellfire and if a woman exposes herself in front of other men – other than her husband – she will be in hellfire. Slowly, they pulled me into that ideology. They used the main thing the fear of hell to hold me in this state of mind. Slowly, they shared with me the Quran translations and the videos of MM Akbar and Zakir Naik. I started watching all those videos.”
She added, “Slowly I was fed up with this Islamic ideology in my brain and after 5 to 6 years of Islamic study, I became anti-Hindu, anti-nation, and not only that I became anti-human because I considered other non-Muslims as just Kafirs only. It is written in Quran that no consideration should be given to Kafirs. They can be treated as cruel as you can. It is said in the Quran. I was fed with this ideology. I was brainwashed. I considered my parents as Kafirs. I hated Hindu gods, Hindu religion, and Hindu culture. The word Hindu I hated the most at that time. They told me many things against our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and almost completely against every Hindu organisation, Hindu religion, and Hindu everything.”
"After studying Islamc ideology for 5-6yrs I became a anti-Hindu, anti-national & not just that, I became a anti-Human as I started considering every non-M as 'kafer'. They said things against PM Modi, all Hindu orgs as well."
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) May 10, 2023
The courageous lady Anagha who made a come-back to… pic.twitter.com/qU0uKUWb2v
Telling more about her conversion, she said, “At the end of the six-year, I wanted to be known as a Muslim woman in front of society. So I had to legally convert and in 2020 I called the conversion centre. I told them that I want to get converted. They told that currently it is locked down. So no new admissions are being taken. I had no other option. It was near my workplace. I quit my job and came home. There I practised Islam. I was living just like a Muslim woman. I started wearing a hijab and full sleeves. I was following all the things said in Islam.”
When asked about how did she come back to Hinduism, Anagha Jaigopal said, “At that time, some of the RSS activists came to know about me and they searched for me and they got to know that I am going to get converted and they connected my family with an organisation which is the Arsh Vidya Samajam. My brother came to me and said don’t think that they don’t have any answers to your questions. Don’t think that nobody has answers to your questions. There is someplace where you can get all your answers. I said I am ready to come there on one condition. Once I leave that place, I will be a complete Hindu or a complete Muslim. With that condition, I entered Arsh Vidya Samajam and met Acharya Shri Manoj with whom I had a debate and he made me realise the fraud and threat in Islam by pointing towards the facts in Quran and Hadis itself. I realised how dangerously I was going on that path. I decided that what I had gone through, no other girl should go through that. Therefore, I decided to work for a lifetime with the Arsh Vidya Samajam. For the last three years, I have been associated with the Arsh Vidya Samajam. Now also we are getting around 10 to 20 phone calls daily saying that our child is getting radicalised. Please help us.”
Story of Vishali Shetty
Vishali Shetty also shared her experience of conversion and commented on how powerful the film has been in narrating the truth. She said, “My radicalisation and my brainwashing into Islam happened in my workplace. I was working in an IT company in Bengaluru. I started in Kerala and then went to Bengaluru. This is when my radicalisation into Islam started. My colleagues approached me. They started asking me questions about my Dharma which initially I tried to defend with common sense and logic but later I did not have answers to their questions. So at that time, there started creating confusion in my mind. They could sense that void and they started feeding me with Islamic ideologies by presenting their ideologies in such a way that it appears to be right or one starts thinking that what they say is right. You start feeling that what Dharma you have been following till now, what culture you followed till now all these years in your life is totally wrong. So that is how it happened to me. I was able to come in contact with the Arsh Vidya Samajam from where we were able to understand the fallacies of the radicalisation and come back to the Sanatana Dharma once again.”
When asked about the film ‘The Kerala Story’ and the reality that persists in the southern state, she asserted that it is not just limited to Kerala. She said, “We have watched the movie and from what the movie shows, we can tell you that it is exactly what is happening in not just Kerala today but many places in India. Not only in India but around the world. The movie very accurately depicts what is happening in the society. Arsha Vidya Samajam has been bringing back converted people for the last 23 years. In our experience itself, we have brought back more than seven thousand people. This is a step-by-step strategic conversion process which in its extreme form could lead to radicalisation to the extent that the brainwashed person lands up in ISIS.”
Testifying the authenticity of the claims of a huge number of people being forcibly converted to Islam, she said, “In many cases, we are able to bring them back at a very earlier stage. Had they not been brought back, had they not been able to come back to Sanatana Dharma, they would have definitely ended up in such a stage. These 7000 people include both men and women. In most of these cases, we cannot tell these stories in the open because people are not ready to come and speak about them in the open. This is because of societal reputation and other different things. Especially when it is a case of a girl, they don’t come ahead and talk about it. This movie has definitely created an atmosphere where more and more people are saying that this is actually happening.”
She called love jihad to be a love trap jihad, indicating specifically the trap part of the plan to convert a girl. She also said that an inter-faith relationship is not a problem if there is no such trap to convert is not involved. She said, “If it is merely a relationship between a boy and a girl it is not at all a problem. Any two people could fall in love and get into a relationship and get married. But what is the problem is that the radicalisation and step-by-step brainwashing is being carried out in the name of love. Rather than calling it love jihad, we would like to call it love trap jihad, that is, they are trapping women or young girls on the pretext of love and through that they are step by step converting them. The first step is that they trap them. In the second step they tell the girls that if my family has to accept you in my house, you have to get converted. They say it is just for marrying. They say it is just for the namesake, just for the parents to accept you have to get converted for the sake of marriage.”
She further said, “But then, the conversion is not just the paperwork or just the formality. She has to undergo a two-month-long proper course on Islamic studies before getting a conversion certificate. In that process, what they are taught is exactly what is depicted in the movie. What the movie depicts in what happens in the conversion is exactly and accurately depicted. The relationships that lead to a step-by-step radicalisation of the girl or of a boy getting into such a path, adopting an anti-national, anti-human, and anti-social mindset is what is the problem and that is what we have to overcome no matter which religion the person belongs to. Of the recorded reports of the number of people who went to join ISIS from Kerala, they have themselves claimed that the majority of the people amongst the 150 or 200 people who have joined are Muslims and only a small number are from other religions, so why are you creating a problem about that. That is exactly what we wanted to say. If Muslims themselves are adopting ISIS, that is a problem for the Muslim community of the nation itself. So they have to fight against this brainwashing first. It is not a problem only for a certain section of society. It is a problem for the whole of humanity itself.”
