The Kashmir Files
NB: Here are two reviews of The Kashmir Files, with different interpretations. Readers are welcome to their own conclusions. Since this is a matter I have spoken and written about for many years, I attach below a selection of my posts beneath the reviews, without further comment. DS
The Kashmir Files: Cinema As Testimony. Siddhartha Gigoo
K-Files impact: Kashmiri Pandit interests take a back seat. Bharat Bhushan
(The second article may be inaccessible, so I attach the text beneath the list of posts - DS)
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Posts from my blog
What is to be Undone: (This post is about the February 2016 student meeting on Kashmir in JNU that led to a major controversy and police cases)
Kashmir - 16 yrs on, Wandhama victims ...
Superflous people - review of 'Our Moon has blood clots'
Kashmiri
Pandit Sangharsh Samiti Press Release ...
The Other Kashmiri Dissenters
Kashmiri
Pandits Stage Protest March in Srinagar
Prominent
Kashmiri Pandit businessman shot dead in Srinagar
Dinanath
Nadim - Kashmir's forgotten poet by Mohan K. Tikku
Kashmir:
Conversations on Exile. Panel discussion on Friday March 10
Mubashir
Mir - Between Sanghi & Separatists: an alternate perspective from Kashmir
Aarti
Tikoo Singh: Digvijay Singh is lying about the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits
Yoginder Khandari on the plight of Non-Migrant
Kashmiri Pandits / Hindus living in Kashmir Valley
'In
solidarity with all Kashmiri students': An appeal by a group of Kashmiri
Pandits
Mansoor Anwar
on Comrade Abdul Sattar Ranjoor
P. B. Mehta:
What the attacks against minorities in Kashmir reveal
Dhrubo Jyoti -
30 years of Pandit exodus: Night of terror that prefaced years of exile
We Fear For
the 400 Kashmiri Pandit Families in South Kashmir: Sanjay Tickoo
Rashmi Singh -
Migrant Workers in the Kashmir Valley
Quratulain
Rehbar: A Year On, Kashmiri Man’s Family Despairs His Continued Incarceration
Under PSA
Communist
Party of India Report (1950) - Imperialist aggression in Kashmir
Sanjay Tickoo's Open
Letter to Omar Abdullah ...
‘Everyone's
Darling’: Merajuddin Shah, The Kashmiri Killed At A Checkpoint
Sualeh Keen on
the exodus of Kashmir's Pandits
SIDDHARTHA GIGOO -
To Die While Dreaming of return ...
Kashmir - 16
yrs on, Wandhama victims await justice
Rahul Pandita
- There are no goodbyes
Two articles
on the Pathribal fake encounter case
Samar Halarnkar demands justice for the victims of Pathribal
Mohammad
Yousuf Tarigami, CPI(M) MLA, J&K: ‘Serious dialogue need of the hour’
Comrade
Satyapal Dang: Lessons of Punjab have Relevance for Kashmir
Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan :Documents
Bharat Bhushan: The Kashmir valley has rejected PM Narendra
Modi's 'Gram Swaraj'
Kashmiri
Pandit Sangarash Samiti Fast-unto-Death enters day 7
BHARAT
BHUSHAN: Cracks appear in Kashmiri political class as govt seeks middle ground
Sanjay Tickoo: ‘Given the political backlash, no Pandit can or will return to Valley’
Ramachandra Guha: Why attack young Kashmiris for a crime committed by someone else?
RSS organisations in Dehradun force two colleges to say they
won’t admit Kashmiris
This Student Helped Evacuate Hundreds Of Kashmiris After
Pulwama
Our Men Didn’t Die So Someone Could Spread Communal Hatred:
CRPF
Kashmiri Pandit who helped stranded Kashmiri Muslims After
Pulwama. By Betwa Sharma
It would seem against
common sense to say that the controversial film Kashmir Files may have done
more harm than good to the cause of Kashmiri
Pandits. The hosannas being sung for this propaganda film need to be
fact-checked for the impact it is likely to have.
A few conversations
with the Pandits who stayed back in the Valley and Hindus in Jammu are
sufficient to suggest that the more widely this film is seen in J&K, the
more Kashmiri Pandits will be isolated and find it even
harder to return to the Valley. Those who stayed on or returned under the
special resettlement scheme of the Manmohan Singh government are likely to
experience greater insecurity.
Some Kashmiri Pandits,
especially in Jammu, had angered Muslim Kashmiris by distributing sweets when
the special status of the state of J&K was abrogated in 2019. Barely had
that anger eased, when old wounds have been reopened by the film. They feel betrayed
that Kashmiri Pandits, are lending credence to the film’s storyline which
besides other cinematic lies, exaggerates the killings (4,000 as opposed to 667
recorded by Kashmiri Pandit organisations) and portrays Kashmiri Muslims as
blackguards.
The Valley’s residents
claim that the worst impact of the film will be on the generation that grew up
after the departure of large numbers of Kashmiri
Pandits three decades ago. They are unaware of the composite social
fabric of Kashmir which was destroyed by militancy. The film, they feel, will
make these 16 to 21-year-olds even angrier and this is the age-group from which
militancy gets it new recruits. Their parents feel unable to influence their
thinking and wonder if neighbours will be able to protect the miniscule number
of Kashmiri Pandits who remain, as some of them did during the 1990 exodus.
In the Valley, the
film is being screened in Badami Bagh Cantonment, the headquarters of the
Chinar Corps, where soldiers have been watching it in large numbers. The
propaganda consequences of the film on the psyche of the soldiers who have to
deal with Kashmiri Muslims on a daily basis can only be imagined. If this is
being facilitated by the army authorities then one wonders what purpose it
serves.
The perception in the
Valley is that the ruling dispensation in Delhi is not really bothered about
the security of Kashmiri Pandits. Local residents point to the killing of the
respected local Kashmiri Pandit pharmacist, Makhanlal Bindroo in the high
security zone of Srinagar and the shooting of two non-Muslim school teachers in
the city in broad daylight. These were described by the Director General of
Police (DGP) Dilbagh Singh as “an attempt to defame the local Muslims of
Kashmir” and aiming “to attack and damage the age-old tradition of communal
harmony and brotherhood in Kashmir.”
Now, precisely the
same objective is being achieved by the active promotion of the film by Central
and state governments controlled by Bharatiya Janata Party. If the social
fabric of Kashmir, barely on the mend, is again torn apart by raking up old
wounds, anger will be triggered against non-Muslims. The militants may find it
difficult to target people outside J&K but there are easier targets nearer
home. “They will not go to Delhi. They will kill me first,” a Kashmiri Pandit
in the Valley quipped with resignation.
While in Jammu, the
common perception is that the film will lead to the consolidation of the
Hindu-vote this assumption looks shaky on closer examination. The Hindus of
Jammu are not a homogeneous lot. The Dogras resent the ethnic superiority they
sense from the Pandits who they say have kept up friendships with Kashmiri
Muslims rather than establish relations with the communities in Jammu. The few
Dogra-Kashmiri Pandit inter-marriages that have taken place are looked at
askance. Kashmiri Pandits who have traditionally been better educated, also
present competition for the Dogras as they tend to get better jobs in the local
administration.
Against this local
history of the two communities, it is shallow to assume that a film about the
suffering of Kashmiri Pandits will bring them together in sympathy. In fact,
other refugees who came to Jammu feel the state has done far less for them in
terms of compensation, education, employment facilities, and the grant of
all-India quotas. These include the descendants of families who came in 1947 as
refugees to Jammu after the massacres of non-Muslims in Mirpur (20,000 Hindus
and Sikhs), Muzaffarabad (18,000 slaughtered), Bhimber (about 5,000) and
Rajouri (7,000) among other places by Pakistani soldiers, irregulars and local
Muslims. Their grudge is that the film promotes one set of refugees while
failing to recognise the suffering of others.
It is a historical
fact that the biggest massacre was that of Muslims between 14 October to
November 1947. Up to 100,000 Muslims were killed in Jammu while 200,000 Muslims
migrated to Pakistan in that two-month period alone. Call it “whataboutry” but
there is a palpable lack of sympathy for Kashmir Pandits among Jammu residents.
The film neither
benefits the Kashmiri Pandits nor heals old wounds. It will instead deepen
social divisions in both the Valley and in Jammu. Its official sponsorship
suggests that when most Kashmiri Pandits and their children have moved on (and
that is not to deny the grave injustice they have suffered), hatred will be
ignited in their next generation and the wound kept festering. Party interest
has clearly overtaken national interest -- keeping hatred of the minority
community alive also keeps politics that thrives on it flourishing. The people
of J&K have the ability to see this but common sense seems an uncommon
resource amongst those lapping up the hatred in the rest of India.
(The writer is an
independent journalist based in Delhi. He was in J&K recently)
