When I was going to watch the film The Kashmir Files, I thought that as a critic, I will only look at it as a film and review it like a film, but after watching the film, my mind changed because as a film it is not a masterpiece. Seeing which we can say.. Wow.. what a film has been made. Yes, after watching the film, the eyes definitely get moist, goosebumps and feel the pain of Kashmiri Pandits.
After watching the film The Kashmir Files, I realized that it is a dark and propaganda film. The writer and director of the film Vivek Agnihotri may deny that he has made a film with propaganda, but in this review I will tell that The Kashmir Files has been made for propaganda but before that a little about the story of the film.
The story of the film The Kashmir Files follows 4 friends who meet after 32 years to scatter the ashes of their fifth friend Pushkar Nath, brought by his grandson. Pushkar Nath was a Kashmiri Pandit and a teacher by profession who wished that his ashes should be scattered in his house from where he was made homeless by terrorists and his family was killed. The story opens during the conversation between these 4 friends and the grandson of Pushkar Nath. Sometimes in the present and sometimes in the past. Pushkar Nath’s four friends were a bureaucrat, a police officer, a doctor and a journalist. His grandson studies in Delhi. Anupam Kher plays the role Pushkar Nath, Mithun Chakraborty as Bureaucrats and Darshan Kumar as Pushkar Nath’s grandson.
The story of the film shows how terrorism has turned Kashmir into hell like a paradise. How Kashmiri Pandits were killed and forced to leave Kashmir. Kashmiri Pandits became refugees in their own country and started living in camps. The pain of these Kashmiri Pandits, their yearning, really makes my eyes moist.
But despite all this this is not a honestly made film, I think The Kashmir Files was made for propaganda, not to solve the problems of Kashmiri Pandits, or to tell their pain. The writer-director has claimed that he has interviewed people like 700 Kashmiri Pandits, bureaucrats, police and after that made this film, but we did not see any such story in this film which we have not heard. Vivek Agnihotri may have talked to 700 people but he made what he wanted to make.
Through the film, Vivek is saying that no one talked about Kashmir or Kashmiri Pandits for 30-32 years. If this is not talked about, then how did the whole world and the whole country come to know that Kashmiri Pandits were tortured, lynched, forced to live as refugees in their own country? Even before I saw Vivek’s film The Kashmir Files, I knew everything about Kashmir that Vivek is showing in the film.
In one scene it is said that the media called terrorist organizations like ISIS as terrorist organizations but gave Rebel status to those who massacred Kashmiri Pandits. But let me tell that I have always heard them in the media or everywhere calling them terrorist and you must have heard the same thing. Yes, to Kashmiri Muslims they may be rebels but to Indians they are terrorists.
In The Kashmir Files, Vivek has shown a university which is JNU. You must have also heard a lot of discussion that anti-national slogans like ‘Afzal ham sharminda hain, tere qatil zinda hain’, ‘Bharat tere tukde honge inshallah inshallah’ were raised in JNU. The matter is in court but Vivek Agnihotri convicted them by filming these scenes and slogans in his film. That is, the same propaganda that BJP leaders sit on TV everyday and say that such anti-national slogans are raised in JNU.
It has also been shown in the film that a professor named Nivedita Menon is misguiding young students and making them anti-national and saying that we have to keep Kashmir alive. Slogans are raised in those scenes, ‘ hamen chahiye azadi, manuvad se azadi, chheen ke lenge azadi, etc. In those scenes ‘Lazim Hai Hum Bhi Dekhenge, Hum Dekhenge Nazm’ have also been shot. These are the same nazms and slogans that were raised during the agitation against CAA and NRC. Poster banners of Free Kashmir have also been held in the hands of the students in the film. Now you tell me, who is the Indian who will stand with the poster of Free Kashmir? None other than Kashmiris. In today’s condition, a Muslim can be suspected for a minute that he might have stood with the poster of Free Kashmir, but with Nivedita Menon, a Hindu can never stand with the poster of Free Kashmir. . Vivek has shown in this film what BJP is doing propaganda since 2014.
After seeing all this, I felt it and you will also feel that Vivek Agnihotri has made a film with propaganda. In the BJP government in which this propaganda was spread that there is no other nationalist other than the BJP, in the same way the film is trying to show.
It has also been said in a scene of the film that this government thinks about Kashmiri Pandits. If you think then why haven’t Kashmiri Pandits been resettled back in Kashmir till now? It has been 8 years since this government came. We have also seen videos of many Kashmiri Pandits on social media when they say that it was expected from this government that we will go back to our homes but this government has also done only politics. If Vivek really made a film honestly for Kashmiri Pandits, he would have asked this government as well, but he did not do so. The film tries to say the same thing over and over again that a particular religion attacked Hindus and the Prime Minister of that time is a friend of the Chief Minister of Kashmir, so keep quiet. And this is what the Bharatiya Janata Party does too.
Had the film been made honestly, then there would have been no talk about JNU because this film has nothing to do with JNU. If this film was honest, then the film would have talked about Kashmiri Pandits and giving them back home.
There is a scene in the climax of the film where 20-25 Kashmiri Pandits were killed simultaneously. Closeup shots were taken in that scene and about a dozen people were shown shooting one by one. If this film was not propaganda but honestly depicted the pain and pain of Kashmiri Pandits, then this shot was not needed.
Now you also decide whether The Kashmir Files is a propaganda film or not?
