• About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Login
NRI Affairs
Youtube Channel
  • News
  • Video
  • Opinion
  • Culture
  • Visa
  • Other
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Video
  • Opinion
  • Culture
  • Visa
  • Other
No Result
View All Result
NRI Affairs
No Result
View All Result
Home Uncategorized

Frenzied publicity of Kashmir Files raises questions about its true intentions

Gargee Chakravarty by Gargee Chakravarty
March 18, 2022
in Uncategorized, Other
Reading Time: 10 mins read
A A
6
The Kashmir files
291
SHARES
2.6k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Advertisements

The story of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in 1990 is promoted as a genocide of Hindus.

Release of Vivek Agnihotri’s film The Kashmir Files has caused a veritable storm among India’s non resident Indian (NRI) population across the globe. Claims of propaganda have cropped up along with assertions of “depiction of truth” by the other side – a clear line divides viewers into two distinctly separate groups.

As we know, unlike other art forms, films are capable of creating an illusion of reality which makes some of us believe movies to be accurate depictions of real life. This issue becomes even more pronounced when films depict unknown cultures, places or even times.

While serving as a source of entertainment, there is also a danger that movies could arouse social consciousness by distorting historical events making it both a persuasive but untrustworthy medium. Political forces, aware of cinema’s powerful reach, have naturally used this media form to mobilize and indoctrinate society with different views, sometimes in a good way and sometimes, not so good.

KFiles2
One of the many images on social media promoting The Kashmir Files. Photo: Twitter

In his film, Agnihotri shows his young hero, Krishna, transform into a righteous, nationalist Hindu despite the machinations of a cunning and ‘liberal’ lady-professor. Coincidentally, in Germany of the 1930s, a film called Hitler Youth Quex, depicted a young man’s transformation from a communist sympathiser to an unquestioning follower of the Hitler Youth movement and the “new” Germany. In both films, the young man is transformed into a political property of the state.

Propaganda films were an important asset of the Nazi regime. Perhaps the most profound archetype was the 1940 production of Jud Suss, a brutal anti-Semitic film based on a story set in the 18th century. There were special screenings of the movie for concentration camp guards and SS commandos before they left for a mission. The story was billed as history that urged its audience to learn its lessons from the film in order to spare exploitation of future generations by the “treacherous” Jews, who lust after power, money and sex.   

A good film based on a good storyline would demand attention irrespective of any grand marketing. Vivek Agnihotri’s film, however, is seeing huge endorsement right from the Prime Minister’s office and chief ministers urging people to watch the film to know the ‘truth’, down to nationalist keyboard warriors warning against a repeat of bloodshed in the event of Islamisation of the whole country.

Hindu organisations are promoting the film on social media in a big way. Theatres are being booked and people are requesting Hindus to watch the film. Unsurprisingly, only Hindus are being urged to watch. Gone are the days of Ramayana and Mahabharata on Sunday morning television, people are now being pushed to watch graphic violence and one-sided story-telling as a part of their religious duty.

Take the chilling words from the Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development, Smriti Irani, who tweeted about the film: “Watch …so that this history soaked in the blood of innocents may never repeat itself.”

In an unprecedented move, even the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi has spoken up about the film and the “facts” that needs to be said.

Speaking at the BJP parliamentary party meeting in Delhi recently, he said: “The entire Jamaat (gang) that raised the flag of freedom of expression has been furious for 5-6 days. Instead of reviewing the film on the basis of facts and art, there’s a conspiracy to discredit it.” Endorsement of a movie, even defending its veracity, by the leader of a country, surely ranks high on the list of firsts for the Indian film industry.

It is not often that you hear the producer of a film gush about a country’s leader either. Abhishek Agarwal, producer of The Kashmir Files has thanked the prime minister profusely on social media and said: “It was a pleasure to meet our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji. What makes it more special is his appreciation and noble words about The Kashmir Files. We’ve never been prouder to produce a film.”

KFiles3
Abhishek Agarwal, Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Agnihotri with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: Twitter/Abhishek Agarwal

Vivek Agnihotri, the director of the film, also got on Twitter to declare his extravagant appreciation of the leadership of India with the message: “I am so glad for you Abhishek Agarwal. You have shown the courage to produce the most challenging truth of Bharat. The Kashmir Files screenings in USA proved the changing mood of the world in the leadership of Narendra Modi.”

Chief ministers of states ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are making the movie tax-free in order to attract audiences from every class of society and some are even offering half-days off work for people to find time to watch it. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that this level of government publicity for a film has not been seen in India before.

Even before the film was released, Agnihotri had sent out a grim message on social media that read: “India is at war. But nobody is telling you. Not anymore. Pl (please) watch the trailer of the most Brutally Honest story of Kashmir Genocide.” It did not take long for people to understand who the villains of this “war” were.

Support for the cause has also been pouring in from cricketers, actors, erstwhile film directors and other celebrities. Chetan Bhagat, author, columnist and screenwriter wrote about the movie: “A film that came like an orphan. Much like the Kashmiri Pandits it depicts, nobody cared.”

Non-resident Indian communities are also ramping up their efforts to promote it in a big way. Nationalistic slogans like ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ are resounding in cinema halls in Australia where the film is being shown. A temple in Melbourne has also taken it upon itself to screen this violent film on its premises this coming Sunday.    

Watched #KashmirFiles yesterday. Am not even referring to cinematic quality Its a long thread … please read in peace. Have tried to be as objective as possible (read thread) @vijaythottathil @RagaTimes @newalkar_uday @VinayDokania @SpiritOfCongres

— SatyaSarvopari (@dharmo_rakshita) March 14, 2022

The film seems to have had the desired effect on its audience. Moviegoers have watched the shockingly bloodthirsty scenes unfold on screen, depicted as “truth”, and have naturally been affected by it. Many have broken down in tears, unable to describe their feelings at the horror their fellow-Hindus have had to face in Kashmir. People are coming out of the cinema halls angry and thirsting for revenge.

Many are heard cursing the Congress party, the main opposition to BJP today, as being silent spectators and facilitators of the “genocide”.

So, what do the critics say about the film, that claims to have documented the atrocities committed on only the Hindus in the valley?

The New Indian Express has called the movie a limp attempt at provocation. In a scathing review about the claim that it champions the case of displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the film, it says, “the Kashmir Files hasn’t the slightest concern for its subject people, gleefully exploiting their trauma and tragedy for cheap rhetoric. And its communal agenda is so brazen, it beats most mainline propaganda.”

Advertisements

“We are shown killings, desecrations, and senseless acts of pillage and abuse. In evoking this bloodlust, the film gives away its own. The violence isn’t contextualized — graphic provocation is all it’s meant to achieve.”

The Print, in its review of the film said: “While (The Kashmir Files) brings out the truth and the much-needed story of Kashmiri Pandits, it tanks its credibility by mingling with facts, defaming JNU, blaming selective politicians, and ignoring the rest of the period of unrest in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Kashmir. It could have been a stunning tribute to the cause, but Agnihotri’s personal opinions give the film and its credibility a death blow.”

KFiles5
Screen grab from The Kashmir Files. Photo: Nri Affairs

Regarding the portrayal of “adversaries” in the movie The Print says simply: “There is no softer way to put it – The Kashmir Files, through and though, is trying to defame JNU, portraying it as an anti-national, terror-friendly institute. Somehow, Vivek Agnihotri also manages to bring up Article 370 in order to connect it with the exodus. The movie almost blames it to be one of the reasons for the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits.”

The Hindu has said the makers of the movie have “employed some facts, some half-truths, and plenty of distortions, it propels an alternative view about the Kashmir issue, with the intent to not just provoke… but incite.”

The review further points a finger at Agnihotri’s inclination to look at the past through the prism of today and says, “the film underplays the Pakistan-Afghanistan angle and puts the onus for perpetuating the insurgency on the local Muslim. In Agnihotri’s documentation, terror has a religion, and it appears every Muslim in Kashmir has been a separatist and keen to convert Hindus to Islam. How the Dogra Kings ruled the State till 1947 is out of the syllabus here.”

Curiously, the movie also tries to pin the blame of the genocide on Farooq Abdullah and the Rajiv Gandhi-led government in Delhi. However, during the exodus, V.P. Singh was the prime minister, supported by the BJP, but the blame is pinned on Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed instead. And if that wasn’t enough, the director does not forget to depict a terrorist asking the young student, Krishna, to go against Narendra Modi as well.

Mehbooba Mufti, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP) and former chief minister of J&K says, “the manner in which GOI is aggressively promoting Kashmir Files and is weaponising pain of Kashmiri Pandits makes their ill intention obvious. Instead of healing old wounds & creating a conducive atmosphere between the two communities, they are deliberately tearing them apart.”

Ms Mufti has herself experienced the horrors of insurgency first hand when her sister, Rubaiya Sayeed was kidnapped by Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) members on December 8, 1989, from Srinagar to ensure the release of their accomplices lodged in different jails.

In fact, her words have been echoed by the Kashmiri Pandit Sangarsh Samiti (KPSS) an organization which primarily addresses the concerns of resident Kashmiri Pandits and Hindus who stayed back in the Valley. In a post on social media, they have declared their dire situation thus:

“Kashmir files makes resident Kashmiri pandits unsafe.”

They have reiterated what many other Hindus who have experienced the exodus in the 90s are saying, that every Kashmiri Muslim is not a terrorist and every Kashmiri pandit is not communal. They both respect, love and share the pain which every Kashmiri has gone through in the last 32 years.

Sanjay Tickoo, the 54-year-old leader of KPSS, had earlier this year said there was lack of will both on the part of the Union Territory (UT) administration as well as the Central government to bring back migrant Kashmiri Pandits to the Valley.

“Neither the Lieutenant Governor’s administration nor the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) or the Prime Minister’s Office show seriousness to bring back migrant Kashmiri Pandits. They lack the will,” Mr. Tickoo told The Hindu in January this year.   

On August 14, 2019, India Today carried a story of Shadi Lal Pandita, a Kashmiri Pandit, who while speaking to IANS, had said the abrogation of Article 370 was the tipping point as it could further escalate communal tension in the state. Pandita was forced to migrate along with his family to Jammu in 1989 when the terror attacks started.

Pandita and many others who fled Kashmir in the wake of cross-border terrorism decades ago, feel that abrogation of Article 370 was done in haste, without taking violence-hit people into confidence.

They feel the actual work of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in J&K should have been to ensure safe return of around 80,000 Kashmiri Pandit families settled mostly in Jammu and Delhi. Instead, they feel the battle of winning hearts and minds has been discarded through thoughtless authoritarian acts. In fact, 60-year-old Pandita said he doubts if the Centre has any rehabilitation policy.

There are many who are openly declaring their intention to give the Kashmir Files a miss.

Kedar Gadgil writes in his blog: “I have not seen The Kashmir Files. I do not know if I will have the bandwidth or interest to see it (even if it has a brilliant actor like Anupam Kher in it). Because even without seeing it, simply knowing that it was made with a single point agenda of changing the known and accepted historical narrative to something that is tailored to fit the hate and bigotry-tinted lenses vision of the director, whose sympathies are quite well-known because of his own admission, is enough for me to know that it will not be worth my time or money, even if all those propagandists are telling me to see it.”

There are many more who are voicing their concerns about the veracity of the claims made by the writers of the film.

The exact impact of indoctrinated representation on public imagination can never be fully gauged but there is no doubt that movies play an important role in sustaining regimes and strengthening ideas that they support.

It is vital that moviegoers apply a critical eye when viewing films. As a tool of propaganda, cinema has often been used with the goal of division in mind, but by remaining an impartial and rational viewer, the audience are the ones who can prevent this untoward outcome.

Share116Tweet73Send
Gargee Chakravarty

Gargee Chakravarty

Gargee Chakravarty is News Editor at NRI Affairs.

Related Posts

A harmonious convergence of teaching, learning and humanitarian goals – Indian-origin, Australian PM Awardee Ms. Veena Nair sets an example
Other

A harmonious convergence of teaching, learning and humanitarian goals – Indian-origin, Australian PM Awardee Ms. Veena Nair sets an example

January 17, 2023
International Melbourne Hockey Cup 2023 logo released
Other

International Melbourne Hockey Cup 2023 logo released

November 7, 2022
Top 10 universities in Australia for Asian/Indian students
Other

Top 10 universities in Australia for Asian/Indian students

November 2, 2022
Next Post
Holi

What Holi Means to me: Michelle Rowland, Labor MP

Scomo has seen his wife "do Bollywood dancing, it's pretty good"

PM Morrison greets "all my Indian Australian friends" on Holi

A Holi that celebrates India’s diversity

A Holi that celebrates India's diversity

Comments 6

  1. Avatar Rajiv Sinha says:
    11 months ago

    All the points that you raised about the film have already been raised. Which part of the film would you say is not factual? You are unfortunately blowing hot air.
    Depiction of reality is not propaganda. These events did happen.

    Reply
  2. Avatar Someone says:
    11 months ago

    I doubt your real name is “Gargee Chakravarty”. Based on the article, Mehbooba Mufti may be your real name. Anyway, now I know nriaffairs is not a trustworthy website – will block in in my news filters.

    Reply
  3. Avatar amit says:
    11 months ago

    Funny where was the Indian army was Pandits were kicked out. Missing in the movie because the army was Hindu ha ha ha
    Bhakt are a useless tribe who instead taking care of Pandits are making money out of their pain

    Reply
  4. Avatar indian says:
    10 months ago

    so acc to the author, the truth about the genocide of Pandits should not be told and we all should shed tears and show sympathy tothe terrorists living there ????

    Reply
  5. Avatar indian american says:
    10 months ago

    I feel like people like you,who write articles like this, about subjects like this, have ice flowing through your veins instead of blood and live on bribes rather than food. Such a biased attempt to trivialize a movie based on real heart wrenching events which occurred to our own country men or former countrymen. And quoting people such as mufti as credible sources for negation is just ridiculous. It’s clear from your article you have neither integrity nor do you uphold your oath for honest journalism. I will henceforth stop reading from this site which publishes/hires people like you.

    Reply
  6. Avatar John james says:
    10 months ago

    We’re your balls being ticked when you wrote this? Really.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recommended

India sends 27 tons of earthquake relief for people of Afghanistan

7 months ago
victoria police

Indian appearance man allegedly scams woman impersonating as AFP officer

1 year ago
Australia Visa Update

Australia Visa Update: DoHA holds the biggest invitation round of this financial year

8 months ago
UNHRC Russia India voting

Russia suspended from UNHRC; India abstains from voting

10 months ago

Categories

  • Literature
  • Multimedia
  • News
  • nriaffairs
  • Other
  • People
  • Top Stories
  • Uncategorized
  • Views
  • Visa

Topics

Air India Australia california Canada caste CECA COVID COVID-19 cricket ECTA Europe free trade FTA Geeta Germany Hindu Human Rights immigration India india-australia Indian Indian-origin Indian Students Khalistan London Melbourne Migration Modi Muslim New Zealand NRI NSW oci quarantine Singapore Sydney travel UAE uk Ukraine US USA Victoria visa women
NRI Affairs

© 2021 NRI Affairs.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Video
  • Opinion
  • Culture
  • Visa
  • Other

© 2021 NRI Affairs.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
Cookie SettingsAccept All
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT