There were a few phone calls messages querying if I had seen the film ‘The Kashmir files’ or not. Much like the Hijab case in Bengaluru, the nation suddenly seemed engrossed and getting polarised. “It will be banned soon; go and see it,” was the advice from my friends, which I reluctantly obeyed. A link of the entire film appeared on my WhatsApp for a free download, followed by the film director seeking fervently not to see the film other than in the halls. The YouTube download link was to ruin the producers and cripple them financially.
The picture was mostly in gloomy, wintery and snowing Kashmir, shot preceding, during and the aftermath of the genocide of the Kashmir Pandits. As many as 100,000 of the 140,000 population fled their homes to escape the war cry, ‘covert, die or leave’ given by the JKLF forces. Downcast and dullness d a definite mood on the cold horror of the Pandits’ lives.
Anupam Kher, himself a Kashmiri Pandit, stole the show with his stellar role as Pushkar Nath Pandit when driven out of Kashmir and from his home forever. The ruthless and scheming villain, Bitta, played by Chinmay Mandlekar, seems a combination of Ghulam Md. Dar and Yasin Mallik, who led the JKLF. He played a memorable role.
A section of the slanted media has already started their whiplashing against the movie, that it not only provokes but incites as well, without a line on the reality of the trauma of the Pandits. Vivek Agnihotri’s excellence in direction appears now and then, like the neighbour dropping rice from his hands to indicate that the Pandit is hiding inside the rice drum.
The role of influencers of the student community was best portrayed by Pallavi Joshi, as Radhika Menon, brainwashing students into believing that terrorism in Kashmir is akin to the Indian freedom movement. Krishna, the grandson of Pushkar Nath and a survivor of the Pandit butchery, is ably played by Darshan Kumar with his restrained acting. Mithun Chakravarty as Commissioner Brahma Dutt, Punit Issar as DGP Hari Narain, Prakash Belawadi as Dr Mahesh Kumar and Atul Srivastava as Journalist Vishnu Ram, all as friends of Pushkarnath Pandit explained the Pandit travails through back and forth scenes.
If the shooting down of a hiding Karan Pandit, hiding in a rice drum, is symbolic yet chilling, the director has been brutal and intense in the timber mill sawing of a living Sharada Pandit, played by Bhasha Sumbli, still crying for her son’s safety. The shooting down of the men, women and children too evoked emotions.
Kashmir files raise a few crucial questions. Did the genocide and flight of Pandits happen? The answer is yes. Are the Pandits still living in camps and disallowed in Kashmir for 32 years? Yes. Has the revocation of Article 370 not been followed up with reinstatement of the displaced Pandit families? Yes again. All these after 75 years of attaining our independence.
The film could have said it all in two hours or less, dragging to the extent of boring sometimes. But it does raise some crucial questions, still unanswered. For the media, which has started claiming that the film would incite communities, it has, with Fatwas against Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Agnihotri. The rest of India will only confine to reclaiming the honour of the displaced Pandits without any animosity to the non-actors of the tragedy.
The film has already earned Rs. 27 crores in the four-day screening of over 2000 theatres, thanks to the naysayers’ uproar over the film’s release.
History is not always pleasant and sometimes unbearable too, and must never be buried.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
