Will The Success Of Kashmir Files Lead To the Emergence Of Right-Wing Cinema In Bollywood?

The most sensational movie of the year, The Kashmir files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri has attempted to showcase the stories of injustice and impeccable crimes committed against Kashmiri Pandits, 30 years ago that forced them to leave their own valley of the upsurge in militancy.

Both right-wing squads are in full swing to persuade everyone that the movie is very close to the truth. Several BJP ruled states such as Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh have made the movie tax-free so more people can watch it and have urged the Film Federation of India to nominate it for Academy Awards.

The movie has all the ingredients the right-wing need to create hatred against Muslims. There is a scene in the movie, e played by Anupam Kher telling his grandson, ‘Azadi is the song of terrorism’ and this perfectly crafts history abroad by the popular right-wing slogan ‘ Hindu Khatre Mein Hai’.

The liberty of expanding cinema into a piece of creativity by the artist has been officially used by the director to showcase Kashmiri Muslims as the major collaborators in the situation in which Kashmiri pandits were thrown.

The debates on the condition of Kashmiri pandits is incomplete without knowing the reason as to what led this in spite of fighting over them:

Post-independence, when Jammu and Kashmir, was accepted as an independent state in India, Indian National Congress did not allow the region to have a transparent electoral election. Ballot-rigging was done on a massive scale that helped INC to retain power in Jammu and Kashmir. The betrayal of people's trust blew the flames of separatism. In the 1990s,  a few years later, after PM Rajiv Gandhi, BJP took out rath yatra in support of Ram temple in Ayodhya which in turn led to communal riots after. The illegal use of lethal weapons, lynching, forced disappearances, and rapes crossed the levels and Pandits became an easy target.

The movie is a complete reflection of modern India where the right-wing is okay when the mob calls against Muslims are echoed. As far as Kashmiri pandits are concerned they have every right to present their version of the story but for a filmmaker to make a present situation in a unilateral version could create fault lines, hence helping the right-wing to mold democracy in accounts of victims.