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Bollywood film The Kashmir Files is a laughable piece of right-wing propaganda

Bollywood film The Kashmir Files is a laughable piece of right-wing propaganda

Given the blatant communal climate in India, the implications in the film are unmistakable: that terrorists = Muslims
31 Mar, 2022

Sometimes propaganda can feel like first love. Both elicit unique — and searing — emotions. Both seem like worlds unto themselves. Both function as secret portals into different dimensions: You haven’t heard, seen, or felt anything like this before. It can be empowering; it can be addictive. But unlike first love, propaganda happens again — and again and again. But if at all — in the country of Godi media, WhatsApp disinformation, and know-it-all uncles — you want some more propaganda, then head to the nearest theatre for The Kashmir Files. Because if alternate reality moves you in the same way that first love did, then this 170-minute film will make you feel like a Yash Chopra hero.

Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, the movie broadly alternates between two timelines, 1990 and 2016 onwards, depicting two versions — two villains — of the country. If the one set in the past, in Kashmir, features “terrorists”, then the one in the present, in a Delhi college named ANU, features “students, intellectuals, professors, and media”. The terrorists storm the house of a local teacher, Pushkar Nath Pandit (Anupam Kher), in 1990, murdering his son. The contemporary period revolves around his gullible grandson, Krishna (Darshan Kumar), an ANU student, who is ignorant about his family’s — his country’s — past, looking up to a professor, Radhika Menon (Pallavi Joshi), fixated on freeing Kashmir.

If at all it’s possible, let’s first consider this piece purely fictional. The writing is objectively poor, comprising not people but loglines. Every character follows a suffocating brief — drowning out ambiguities or complexities — making the film monotonous and inert. Pushkar: a devout and peaceful Hindu, Krishna: a naïve and ‘liberal’ student, Radhika: a manipulative and agenda-driven professor.

These are not characters as much as WhatsApp forwards. Whether it’s the past or the present — whether they’re smiling or frowning — their conversations only advance the film’s thesis. The ANU portion is nothing but a series of brainwashing conversations between Radhika and Krishna. The Kashmir portion is pivoted on a series of ‘educative’ conversations between Pushkar’s friends and Krishna.

Darshan Kumar plays the role of Krishna Pandit
Darshan Kumar plays the role of Krishna Pandit

These sequences are painfully repetitive, treating the audiences like unlettered idiots. Again, the entire screenplay could have been a WhatsApp forward (800 words). The cuts between the past and the present are arrhythmic and random — anything that helps amplify the shock. The movie lacks intellectual curiosity and a sense of openness — minute moments probing the expansive human condition.

The recently released Bollywood film The Kashmir Files is a laughable piece of right-wing propaganda. But its over-simplification is what makes it frightening

None of it is surprising. Even a cursory look at Agnihotri’s filmography reveals something obvious: that he’s mostly made C-grade erotica and D-grade propaganda.

Mythmaking

What makes The Kashmir Files so different then? It’s not as if Bollywood has been historically progressive. Even many of its better products have been classic right-wing — pro-capital, pro-military, pro-‘tradition’. There has been no dearth of recent jingoistic and communal dramas, either, ranging from shocking (Bhuj) to shameful (Tanhaji).

When it comes to Agnihotri’s film, the answer lies in the title itself, and the operative word is not “Kashmir” but “Files”. Because it has an investigative — a journalistic — tinge to it. “Files” also imply something secretive, something suppressed. It almost feels revolutionary and transformative, a fact-finding mission: an audience member has become a collaborator.

This is the film’s game.

And Agnihotri plays the hell out of it. He uses the following trick throughout the movie: He lures you with facts — such as the horrific exodus of Kashmiri Pandits — then distorts reality, mocks it, sprinkles some facts, distorts it, and so on.

This isn’t movie-making as much as myth-making, and the film’s intentions and designs are evident right from the start. It begins with a disclaimer; the first line has two key bits: “true events” and “Kashmir genocide”. Its dialogues feature many lines in Kashmiri — accompanied by English subtitles — enhancing its ‘realism’. Its characters talk about the local food, such as nadru, removing another layer of doubt. The film uses real-life footage to further boost its ‘documentary’ credentials: both visual (Benazir Bhutto screaming “azaadi” on TV) and aural (a 1990 cricket radio commentary — the film’s first scene — Imran Khan bowling to Sachin Tendulkar).

Such desperation prompts an obvious question: Why does The Kashmir Files perform such an elaborate dance of fact and fiction? Simple: It’s a recruitment brochure for ‘ignorant’ male Hindus, people much like Krishna, who have been ‘brainwashed’ by intellectuals, institutions and foreign media — people who don’t know their own country, who must be rescued and nurtured and ‘educated’ to spread the message further. If you think I’m exaggerating, let me tell you the film’s obsessions.

Straight out of Hindu Rashtra playbook

First, Hindu iconography, evident in characters’ names (Krishna, Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Sharda) and dialogues (Pushkar says “Om Namah Shivay” when kicked by the main villain Bitta). It’s evident in an initial shot establishing the mood: a burning portrait of god Shiva on the street. This is a very small sample. By invoking such imagery, Agnihotri seems to be implying that Hinduism itself is imperiled. Or — louder for those at the back! — “Hindu khatre me hai!

If you need more proof, the film provides it — by re-orienting the same message. At every possible opportunity, the filmmaker underscores the terrorists’ religion. When Pushkar cries “Om Namah Shivay”, Bitta replies, “Agar Kashmir me rehna hai toh Allah ho Akbar kehna hai”.

Bitta was in fact Pushkar’s student. Another piece of dog-whistling: all Kashmiri Muslims are terrorists (this isn’t even an implication; the film is almost explicit about it, more than once). This, too, is a very small sample. Given the blatant communal climate in the country for the last many years, these implications are unmistakable: that terrorists = Muslims — or, more accurately, Muslims = terrorists.

But why stop at adults? Muslim kids marching with guns; a Muslim kid saying, “Get out Pandits”; Muslim kids chanting in a mosque: “Raliv, Galiv, Ya Chaliv [convert, leave or die].”

Given the blatant communal climate in the country for the last many years, these implications are unmistakable: that terrorists = Muslims — or, more accurately, Muslims = terrorists.

Agnihotri even includes a live demonstration: Shiva’s schoolteacher, a Muslim man with a long beard, telling the class to repeat a communal sentiment. What about the Hindu kids? In the very first scene, a few Muslim men say, “Sachin is not a good player”, then beat a Hindu kid, and force him to say, “Pakistan Zindabad”.

A newspaper headline screams, “A six-year-old killed in terrorist attack.” The film even designs its last scene — bizarrely cutting to a flashback — to leave the audiences with the following image: a terrorist shooting a Hindu boy in the head.

The Kashmir Files’ biggest obsession, however, is Hindu emasculation and religious conversion. We not just hear “Raliv, Galiv, Ya Chaliv” multiple times but also “Kashmir will become Pakistan, without Hindu men, with Hindu women”. Remember the bearded Muslim teacher? Well, he turns out to be lecherous, too, creeping Shiva’s mother out.

This is less of a film, more of a Hindu Rashtra playbook.

But the author of Urban Naxals, Agnihotri, reserves his most memorable spleen not for the terrorists, not for the administration, not for anyone or anything else, but for the students and the professors of ANU. This is where he’s particularly dangerous (and perhaps most effective).

Radhika exemplifies the ‘straw woman’ argument. She posits some sensible and many ridiculous ideas. The intention is simple: debunk her bizarre claims, leave her sensible points alone, so that everything she says, and stands for, can be ridiculed. This is ‘ink drop’ filmmaking: one drop, all Muslims terrorists; another drop, all protesters ‘anti-nationals’.

By constructing two villainous parallels — the terrorists and the ANU people — Agnihotri prods the audiences to associate Radhika’s ideas with terrorism. He wants you to remember them the next time they’re uttered: maybe during a discussion, a news panel, a protest march. She stands among students holding “Free Kashmir” placards; talks about “plebiscite”; mentions Burhan Wani, Afzal Guru, and The New York Times. She talks about “fascism, deshdrohi”, and “nationalists”. She sings 'Hum Dekhenge'. She has “deep contacts” in Kashmir. She tells Krishna, “Pin it on the government! Don’t blame the terrorists!”

There’s a reason the ANU portion starts from the year 2016. “Azaadi” on ANU campus means “India se azaadi”. Much like the film, she is obsessed with “truth”. Radhika is so evil that she ends up providing some comic relief. At the start of the film, she’s quasi-bullying Krishna on campus, standing behind a large poster of — you guessed it — Mao! Radhika was so laughable after a point that I half-expected a disclaimer to pop up whenever she appeared on the screen: “No JNU professors were harmed during the making of this film.”

None of this is enough, because the film must genuflect to its ultimate master: Modi. And true to the spirit of The Kashmir Files, it’s not just enough that Modi is Good — “the current government supports the Pandits,” says a character — but every other politician must be bad, including even Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

In a later scene, comparing himself to Gandhi (!), Bitta says that “Nehru and Vajpayee wanted to be loved” but the current prime minister “wants to be feared”. So much of this film feels like the BJP’s election manifesto: multiple references to Article 370, Bitta bragging about murdering an RSS worker on TV, and of course Congress bashing. The film maybe mum about the inaction of the VP Singh government — supported by the BJP — in 1990, but it engineers a flashback to 1989 to take a dig at the “youth leader” prime minister, who doesn’t check the violence in the Valley, because he’s friends with the chief minister.

Every incendiary bit in the film leads up to the climax: a very Howard Roark-like monologue. Running for 14 minutes, it’s a terrifying peek into the Hindutva mindset with respect to Kashmir. And it sounds very (very) familiar: that the great Hindu sages, in essence, founded Kashmir; that the Islamic tyrants invaded Kashmir in the 1300s; that these facts have been deliberately suppressed from us, culminating in Krishna pointing his finger at the ANU crowd, saying you’re responsible for this genocide.

I saw this movie in a South Delhi multiplex where, after a long stretch of absorbed silence, some audience members started to react. When the “media” was called “aasteen ka saanp”, titters rippled across the theatre. Later, a young Kashmiri man, appearing for the first time in the film signalling an ‘everyman’, asks Krishna, “Do you think I’m a terrorist?”

The person behind me replied, “Haan.”

(Not the first time. I last experienced it during Uri.)

While leaving the theatre, a middle-aged man, remembering Schindler’s List, told his friend, “I’ll watch this film five to six times. You can’t run away from history.”

Modi’s endorsement has anyway ensured that it will be a huge box-office success, truly justifying its sordid ends: that there’s cash in Kashmir and lies in files.


By arrangement with The Wire


Published in Dawn, EOS, March 27, 2022

Comments

Tadka Mar 31, 2022 05:07pm
1.3 billion don't think so dear sold-out writer
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Siva Mar 31, 2022 05:15pm
This film has been researched for the last 2 years, done thousands of interviews with victims to get the truth in it. Not a fiction; true story of what happened to Kashmiris who were driven out. Ask any Kashmiri who left barely with his belongings in 1990s.
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The Indian Mar 31, 2022 05:31pm
The true story of Kashmiri Hindus? Can anyone deny?
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Arpit Mar 31, 2022 05:38pm
Looks like writer is frustrated but then I saw The Wire at the bottom and got it all. Keep crying, we love it all.
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Xyz Mar 31, 2022 05:47pm
All non sensical article. It seems nothing happened in Kashmir..
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Jazz Mar 31, 2022 05:51pm
All lies. Anupam kher says himself Kashmiri. Nlhe never lived there nor was born there. All RSS gimic for election.
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pawn Mar 31, 2022 06:05pm
The movie is a blockbuster hit because its the truth and it hurts even across the border.
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TimeToMovveOn Mar 31, 2022 06:33pm
Whether you like dislike Kashmir Files, where the Pandits not driven out of Kashmir by militants. Do you think that the Pandits who have lived there for hundreds of years, volunteered to leave?
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bhaRAT© Mar 31, 2022 06:35pm
What else to expect from Indian Disinformation network, exposed twice by the EU!!
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Powerful Mar 31, 2022 06:37pm
Full agree with you, would like to make one more like that, as long as another 200 crore can be made, based on true facts
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Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad Mar 31, 2022 06:41pm
Lies, lies and more lies.
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Sebastian Mar 31, 2022 06:44pm
Lying to the people of India does not change reality - this is the same Zionism project plotline. Can you Indians do anything original? Even chaapa opression ?
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Kulbhushan Yadav Mar 31, 2022 06:55pm
This movie is like a cat set among the pseudo secular pigeons.
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UHD Mar 31, 2022 07:02pm
After article 370 gone, people have bought land in Kashmir. And you know ? Saudi Arabia and UAE, the prominent members of OIC have invested heavily in Kashmir. this is the reality, you like it or not !
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TimeToMovveOn Mar 31, 2022 07:25pm
So I guess the kashmir pandits decided to volunteer to leave their homeland?
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TimeToMovveOn Mar 31, 2022 07:25pm
Truth hurts. Its OK. Just like you deny Bengali genocide, you would deny the existence of Kashmir pandits too.
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Sidhu Mar 31, 2022 07:30pm
@Jazz Any one like you ever visited Kashmir?
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Bakwas Mar 31, 2022 07:33pm
As per this propaganda article writer, those who carried out ethnic cleansing of Pandits were soooo innocent.
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Hypnosis Mar 31, 2022 07:39pm
The propaganda is so much that the movie is releasing in UAE with zero cuts. Guess, now you will say that UAE is also fan of Modi and his right wing supporters.
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Bitter truth Mar 31, 2022 07:42pm
Just wait for Bangladesh files......
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kp Mar 31, 2022 07:51pm
Natives were killed and driven out of their land and you think its laughable?
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Chicha Mar 31, 2022 07:52pm
For some people, the genocide is still laughable and this movie definitely a way to unite real Hindustanis.
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Drr Mar 31, 2022 07:52pm
Why such a very long and ellobarate review if the movie is that bad .
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sriniwas Mar 31, 2022 07:55pm
UK parliament has invited the filmmakers and historians to speak about the plight of the displace kashmiri pundits.
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Chicha Mar 31, 2022 08:01pm
They killed innocents, that did not spread hatred. We watched the film, this spread the hatred.
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Krishna Rao Mar 31, 2022 08:02pm
Looks like only Muslims are human and attrocities against others is deserving. All the stories shown are true just go read. Some of pundits whose family was killed ran away and stayed for rent in my house
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Jai Mar 31, 2022 08:05pm
This article is the real joke. The writer does not refute the genocide of Kashmiri pundits with any evidence. He is way too busy trashing the film with personal opinions. I wonder what’s the agenda???
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planettrekker Mar 31, 2022 08:19pm
Sure, anyone can sulk about the format of the film, the acting, or the creativity. But they cannot deny a verifiable and recorded fact, that the Hindus of India's Kashmir were systematically targeted for termination. The term 'genocide', applies here. The film is on point in this regard.
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Anshul Mar 31, 2022 08:29pm
Such a useless and worthless article.. can feel writer’s frustration..
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ramana Mar 31, 2022 08:31pm
It's a block buster in small movie sector. Collections crosses big hero average movies.
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Cholas Mar 31, 2022 08:33pm
May be propaganda but still facts are true
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Himanshu Rajgor Mar 31, 2022 08:37pm
what part of the movie was fiction
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R K Dubey Mar 31, 2022 08:51pm
Writer appears to believe that public forget genocide of Pundits in Kashmir. All the stories narrated in the film are true and were published in the nineties.
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A shah Mar 31, 2022 08:54pm
Truth hurts. Pakistan has been exposed
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Gaurav Mar 31, 2022 08:58pm
@Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad - "Lies, lies and more lies." Which part?
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bhaRAT© Mar 31, 2022 09:03pm
@TimeToMovveOn No, the Pandits were not driven out of Kashmir. Just ModiLies!
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UHD Mar 31, 2022 09:27pm
The truth is always bitter.
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T-man Mar 31, 2022 09:28pm
Propaganda against Muslims. India has become a fascist and dictator country.
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T-man Mar 31, 2022 09:30pm
What else one can can expect from extremists. India. Lies, hate, and fiction.
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T-man Mar 31, 2022 09:31pm
Will Abhinandan fly planes in the movie.
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Nitin Bhan Mar 31, 2022 09:34pm
@Jazz you must understand and think we he could never live in Kashmir.
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Alla Bux Mar 31, 2022 09:35pm
Truth is laughable by liars.
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Alla Bux Mar 31, 2022 09:37pm
@The Indian No one can deny but we can hide it. We hid it all these years thanks to your Congress govt. Now it is out in the open we have to deny it.
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Truth Mar 31, 2022 09:53pm
Now I must watch this movie.
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Ahad Mar 31, 2022 09:57pm
It suits the massive number of Hindutva extremists in India though.
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Vijay Mar 31, 2022 10:04pm
One should see it before making his/her own judgement, so far I know film is available on YouTube.
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kamal chowkidar Mar 31, 2022 10:19pm
This movie is really giving heartburn to those who don't like the truth.
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Harambe Mar 31, 2022 11:11pm
@Siva : Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction!
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Nfnrn Mar 31, 2022 11:17pm
Minority leftists dont count anymore
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Uturn Mar 31, 2022 11:39pm
This movie is even better than the blockbuster movie Uri.
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Normal Man Mar 31, 2022 11:53pm
@Jazz do little more research. His family and him ran away from them instead of making senseless claims.
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Nikhil Apr 01, 2022 12:28am
@Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad Do you know about the Roshni act after this promulgated in Kashmir ? real history , go through papers and don't write just to defend
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GreenAura Apr 01, 2022 12:41am
@Siva Hi. Did you know how many Muslims lived in Jammu before 1948? Can you interview Hari Singh's descendants on what happened to them please?
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Suresh Apr 01, 2022 01:10am
Truth is truth after all
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Noon Apr 01, 2022 01:25am
It can be laughable but not for the Muslim population! It is building a culture of hate which can lead to a genocide as was done in Germany!
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Sunil Apr 01, 2022 01:30am
@T-man Propaganda against Muslims. India has become a fascist and dictator country. and we love it.
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Simbs Apr 01, 2022 02:26am
Nothing you could do in 70 years except crying
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Abdul Apr 01, 2022 02:32am
@bhaRAT© Truth always hurts . As simple as that.
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Abdul Apr 01, 2022 02:40am
@Ahad, Liars can’t hide the truth forever.
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Secular Apr 01, 2022 02:47am
@Bitter truth yes this very same producer needs to now focus on making Bangla Desh files I am ready to finance him
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Truth Apr 01, 2022 02:52am
@bhaRAT© Great! live in your fancy world. Your ancestors were not converted either.
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Truth Apr 01, 2022 02:57am
This is why it gets clear that there are many more with terrorist mentality than those who take up arms.
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Jag Apr 01, 2022 03:05am
If the movie is trash, let the Pakistani audience view it? Let them judge for them selves.
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Sandip Bhattacharya Apr 01, 2022 03:10am
@Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad Have you seen it?
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MJ Apr 01, 2022 03:45am
The documentary producer has researched for years and interviewed thousands and they unknown author watches the movie and concludes it is a fiction. Very nice, go get a life!
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UHD Apr 01, 2022 04:59am
@The Indian 'The true story of Kashmiri Hindus? Can anyone deny?' It's also a true story of terrorists and its perpetrators !
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SATT Apr 01, 2022 05:40am
Laughing on the justice is much bigger sin than killing.
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M Emad Apr 01, 2022 05:42am
'The Kashmir Files' (2022) one of the best Bollywood film.
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dev Apr 01, 2022 06:34am
truth hurts.
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riz1 Apr 01, 2022 07:03am
Truth is stranger than fiction as seen in multiple factual paper clippings in the movie. Widespread social media and acute awareness of today will mark the end of blackmail, mischief and mob violence (eg. direct action) as political tools in free India. All good.
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SM Apr 01, 2022 07:47am
Pakistanis say they stand for the rights of Kashmiris. Which ones? Only Muslim ones?
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Akil Akhtar Apr 01, 2022 08:00am
@Tadka when did you ask the 1.3billion people....
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Simba Apr 01, 2022 08:20am
@Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad really?
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Anonymouseee Apr 01, 2022 08:30am
Bollywood movies have been full of propaganda for decades now. I’m surprised why we haven’t banned their screening in our country yet.
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Anonymouseee Apr 01, 2022 08:31am
@Tadka that’s because Indians love lies fed to them through fictitious movies.
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Drac Apr 01, 2022 08:41am
@Tadka, I agree, the reviewer is burdeoned with his upbringing and the class of society he comes from. He can't think any better.
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Adnan Ahmad Apr 01, 2022 09:18am
the india was big democracy in south asia with true secular nature...but the RSS backed regime turning everything to catastrophe
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Cholas Apr 01, 2022 09:38am
@GreenAura What does that have to do with what happened in 1989? This movie is about incidents in late 1980's
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Eternal_Dharma Apr 01, 2022 09:49am
It is a perfectly accurate portrayal of what happens to the minorities when a certain 'special' community becomes majority. Is the story any different in today's land of the pure? What has the growth rate of the minority population been in the land of the poor since the independence?
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PakSwine Apr 01, 2022 01:26pm
@bhaRAT© Really!
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riz1 Apr 01, 2022 02:53pm
@Jazz All RSS gimic for election. RSS is not a political party
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@saas@ Apr 02, 2022 12:26am
Acceptance and moving on ... Without rejecting as propaganda, as humans, we should look at what happened and not repeat the same in future. You cannot bring back the lives of Hindus or Muslims or Christians.
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c krishnan Apr 02, 2022 01:03am
@Siva Yes, my research over the past 50 plus years shows there are fairies and gods at the bottom of my garden in Madras. So was Bollywood's Padmavati as much a true story as this junk by this Hindutva Bhakt director. True. the Pandits were hounded and many murdered in cold blood by terrorists inflamed by politico-religious bigotry and fanaticism preached to them by the same kind of propaganda as this ha'penny worth film. But the entire context is missing! And more innocent Kashmiri Muslims were killed and there is no reference anywhere to this in this 3rd rate film pretending to be a documentary instead of fiction.
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c krishnan Apr 02, 2022 01:06am
@The Indian Yes as a genuine Indian I can safely say it is a very biased film that will appeal to the unthinking and irrational educated mind. Out of context and one sided designed to endorse adn promote Islamophobia in radicalised Indian minds.
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c krishnan Apr 02, 2022 01:18am
Congratulations for the enlightened critique on this propaganda film made to please and endorse Hindutva agenda of communal hate poison.
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Tadka Apr 02, 2022 10:37am
@Akil Akhtar ever heard of IMDB, social media
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M. Saeed Apr 02, 2022 12:13pm
@The Indian, The true story of Kashmiri Hindus, who are only 11% of total Kashmir region.
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M. Saeed Apr 02, 2022 12:18pm
@UHD article 370 gone, which was the collateral for Maharajah's condition for signing the interim letter of allegiance with India. With the collateral gone, the allegiance with India equally gone and legally, Kashmir becomes, as it was before that interim allegiance,
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Tadka Apr 02, 2022 02:43pm
@c krishnan your pain is truly visible as true to your name
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rOCKY Apr 03, 2022 03:17am
@Ahad ...Hope this true. Ghee Sakkar to your feed but They still behave like ostriches with head in sand.
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rOCKY Apr 03, 2022 03:26am
@Adnan Ahmad ... till allow to population bloom.
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