Naveen Zalpuri-
Couple of incidents first:
September of 2018, I was part of a small group hosting an eminent Kashmir expert Sushil Pandit to talk about the History of Kashmir, past and present, its role in the Indic civilization at India Community Center (ICC) in Fremont California. Earlier that month my college alumni hosted a magnificent 3-day convention in San Francisco where hundreds of college alumni, various dignitaries, and notable alumni had gathered. I had brought with me some flyers about the Kashmir event and asked organizers at my alumni meetup, my friends from college if the “Master of Ceremonies” could say a word about the ICC event once the convention had broken into song and dance part. The intent was I together with a couple of other Kashmiri folks would then pass on the handouts to those interested in the event. My request to my organizer friends was denied and they discussed endlessly why it was inappropriate for them to allow that.
Fast forward to February of 2022 on the night of MahaShivratri, a Rajasthani friend again from college days, visiting Srinagar called me up and gave me a virtual tour of his Shikara lodge and Hari Parbat view from Nigeen lake, he said he was sad to see that we (his Kashmiri Hindu friends from college) lost such a beautiful homeland, he also regretted that we never talked about these things back then and knew so little about the situation surrounding the Hindu exodus from valley.
Watershed moment:
The 2018 incident reiterated that Hindus wherever they continue to be fearful and put paramount importance in being politically correct at the cost of obfuscating truth, conveying indifference, and showing a lack of empathy. The second incident brings home that we Kashmir Hindus also didn’t share our experiences as much, sometimes in a bid to move on, and other times expecting ridicule or indifference, and even worse the leftist/pseudo-liberal narrative in response to our misery.
The movie “The Kashmir Files’ ‘ I firmly believe is a watershed moment whereby having provided a powerful visual glimpse of our genocide in its naked and most truthful form the majority in India is starting to understand the magnitude of the tragedy that people barely knew and are feeling for it. The subject that was taboo is now in the mainstream and people are comfortable with hearing and reconciling with the truth. With the changing perspectives, I hope it would no longer be uncool to mention the topics like Kashmir that made some people uncomfortable. By the same token, Kashmiri Hindu survivors also shall feel more empowered and confident about sharing their horrific stories. Vivek Agnihotri and his team needs to be commended and celebrated for showing the courage to make and present this film. No one before had the guts to do this. This was a story that needed to be told at this scale. In fact, after 32 years, the knowledge surrounding this pogrom against exiled Hindus of Kashmir is all the more relevant to the idea of India, what happened to Kashmir’s minority Hindus must not happen anywhere in India or the world.
The Film’s Storyline:
For a Kashmir Hindu who lived those times and suffered the genocide and forced exodus the story built in the film is actually a collection of few of the gruesome stories juxtaposed together. Also, the key terrorist character shown in the movie is the amalgamation of notably two terrorists Yasin Malik and Bitta Karate who led the carnage with the overwhelming support of the majority community and in absence of any administration whatsoever.
It was an impossible task to capture thousands of brutal killings, mayhems, and other unspeakable horrific events in a single 3-hour movie. The movie moves back and forth between the events in 1989/90 and the present day, to support a fictional storyline that draws from the lives of real people and incidents, and most importantly the exodus of half a million people. The best part of the movie is the expose’ of the unholy nexus between the pseudo-liberals and the hardcore Jihadists (directly responsible for Hindu genocide) where the former is making “Gandhians, heroes and victims” out of the latter. Even worse, that pseudo-liberal narrative has been making Indians doubtful thus leading them to despise their own people, culture, values and institutions. In that sense, I loved the character and performance of Pallavi Joshi the most who played a hardcore pseudo-liberal. The role essayed by Anupam Kher of a Pandit grandfather is as authentic as it gets. All other characters are done brilliantly. The Kashmiri pronunciation of Urdu, the interspersing of Kashmiri dialogues throughout the movie leads to the credibility of the characters.
Some nitpicking:
The movie at certain places moves at a very slow pace and could have benefitted from better editing and been crispier. Some of the locales like Pushkar Nath’s home were off. As the movie is based on well-known (to Kashmiri Hindu’s) real incidents and in the public domain in the last 32 years, perhaps showing these gruesome stories parallelly rather than connecting with the same set of characters would have led some more authenticity to the plot. Another nit.. though thousands of Kashmiri Hindu refugee families ended up in makeshift tents, yet it was highly unlikely that someone (like Pushkarnath’s character) who broke bread with the character of IAS Brahma Dutt, DC and other ranking high officers would end up in a tent in Jammu, and not in some modest rented place. It is also highly unbelievable that the same family would relocate back to Kashmir (this time Nadimarg) after having suffered the barbarity at the hands of their trusted neighbor. Nonetheless, all these misses are easy to ignore by the audiences who may not have as much of a context and are learning about the genocide for the first time. Overall the movie has hit the point hard and people have lapped it overwhelmingly.
A friend after watching the movie remarked “I don’t understand how the protagonist did not know anything about his past, how he could not know it all along?”. I responded, “That does not surprise me since I found the Kashmiri Hindu community generally had their children focus on the future and shielded them from the past baggage of pain and anguish. The only downside in some cases was that they sometimes fell for the fake narratives as is also depicted in the movie”.
Naysayers:
There are people who are saying that film is a one-sided narrative, to them I say this is the narrative that was conveniently missing all these years. For the so-called liberals and Jihadists they are accusing the film of hate-mongering but they seem to be rattled that the general public is awakening to the truth and do fear that the public might not be befooled again. That said, it is also encouraging to see some people from Kashmir owning up and coming in to support and acknowledge the persecution and forced eviction of Hindus from the valley.
Justice and the way forward:
The Kashmir Files has turned into a movement, a phenomenon. Speaking the hard truths perhaps no longer would be kept under rugs or sugar-coated in the world of filmmaking and otherwise.
The first thing that would deliver justice to exiled Hindus would be to try and punish terrorists Bitta Karate and Yasin Mallik for the crimes they committed against humanity.
The second and longer-term should be the effort of reconciliation, rehabilitation and inclusion. This will happen with the return of pluralism to the Kashmir valley. The only way forward for achieving that is for the government of that day to set up a cosmopolitan inclusive smart city where Indians of all origins including the forcibly evicted Kashmiri Hindus can build their lives and homes. This will put the chapter of annihilation and extermination behind us. It is a humongous undertaking but we can take inspiration from the past, when the Mauryans established the city of Srinagar two thousand years ago, why can’t the present-day government build a new-age city in Kashmir to bring pluralism and prosperity back into the valley.
