‘The Kashmir Files’ Or ‘The Political Files’?

Vivek Agnihotri’s film, ‘The Kashmir Files’ has received a lot of praise from the Centre. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had used this opportunity for slamming the opposition, who is saying that the movie tried to hide the truth about the violence inflicted on Hindus in what was India’s only Muslim majority state. The movie has created a big political uprise.

“The entire Jamaat (gang) that raised the flag of freedom of expression has been furious for 5-6 days. Instead of reviewing the film on the basis of facts and art, there’s a conspiracy to discredit it,” he had said.

In many of the states the movie has been made tax free.

Taking a swipe on the BJP government, Telengana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, on March 21 said, “What is the film The Kashmir Files? If there is any progressive government, there should be irrigation files and economic files. Who wants The Kashmir Files?… The central government is asking its employees to go and watch the movie. What kind of politics is this? Who is responsible for the atmosphere in the country?”

According to the Hindustan Times report, the CM said that in Delhi Kashmiri pandits have claimed that some people are doing this for the votes, and they did not get any benefits until now.

In his weekly column ‘Rokhthok’ in Shiv Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said it was the BJP’s promise to ensure the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits to Kashmir, but the same has not happened despite the abrogation of Article 370, and sought to know whose failure it was.

Article 370 acknowledged the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in terms of autonomy and its ability to formulate laws for the state’s permanent residents. In the 1954 Presidential order, among other things, the Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution were made applicable to Kashmir with exceptions. On 5 August 2019, the Parliament of India voted in favour of a resolution tabled by Home Minister Amit Shah to revoke the temporary special status, or autonomy, granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir and then the Article 370 was aborgated.

Sanjay Raut also called PM Modi the main promoter of the movie. Attacking the BJP further, Raut asked the NDA constituent what happened to its promise of integrating Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) with India.

National Conference (NC) working president Omar Abdullah said that the movie The Kashmir Files was far from the truth and people who have made the movie want Kashmiri Pandits to return.

“The pain and suffering of 1990 and after can not be undone. The way Kashmiri Pandits had their sense of security snatched from them and had to leave the valley is a stain on our culture of Kashmiriyat. We have to find ways to heal divides and not add to them,” Omar Abdullah tweeted.

BJP’s Amit Malviya launched a scathing attack on Omar Abdullah’s father and former J&K chief minister Farooq Abdullah. He tweeted, “Which part of #KashmirFiles does Omar find untrue?

The fact that Farooq Abdullah, his father, resigned as CM on 18Jan1990, and as if on cue the genocide was unleashed on hapless Kashmiri Hindus starting 19Jan1990? That he ordered the release of 70 ISI trained dreaded terrorists?”

The movie, produced by Zee Studios, has triggered a political fire. The Opposition has called it a “propaganda film.”

Several opposition leaders have alleged that through this movie the government is trying to spread hatred in society.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said that the movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ shows only half truth. He said that not only Hindus, but Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs were also murdered in Kashmir. He said that it is inappropriate to show only one side.

Former Chief Minister of Bihar Jitan Ram Manjhi, alleged that the film made on the exodus of Kashmiri pandits could be a “conspiracy of the terror organisations to instill a sense of fear in the Kashmiri Pandits so that they do not return to the Kashmir.” Manjhi, citing a link between terror organisations and the makers of the film, tweeted, “The Kashmir Files could also be a deep conspiracy of terrorists who could be trying to create an atmosphere of fear in Kashmiri Brahmins so that they cannot go to Kashmir again.”

Opposition leaders such as former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah questioned the movie and demanded a fresh probe into the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s.

On Sunday, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had said “Pakistan and militancy” were responsible for what has happened in Jammu and Kashmir.

“I believe that Mahatma Gandhi was the biggest Hindu and secularist. Pakistan and militancy are responsible for what has happened in Jammu and Kashmir, it has affected all Hindus, Kashmiri Pandits, Kashmiri Muslims, Dogras,” the Congress veteran said in Jammu.

The Kashmir Valley which is a part of the larger Kashmir region has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan from 1947. Before 1947, during the period of British rule in India when Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state, Kashmiri Pandits, or Kashmiri Hindus, had stably constituted between 4% and 6% of the population of the Kashmir valley in censuses from 1889 to 1941; the remaining 94 to 95% of the population was Kashmiri Muslim.

By 1950, a large number of Pandits—whose elite owned over 30% of the arable land in the Valley—moved to other parts of India in the face of land reforms planned by the incoming administration of Sheikh Abdullah, the threat of socio-economic decline, and the unsettled nature of Kashmir’s accession to India.

In 1989 a persisting insurgency began in Kashmir. It was fed by Kashmiri dissatisfaction with India’s federal government over rigging an assembly election in 1987 and disavowing a promise of greater autonomy. The dissatisfaction overflowed into an ill-defined uprising against the Indian state.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), an organization whose objectives at the time were political, not religious, led the uprising but did not abjure violence. In early 1990, the vast majority of Kashmiri Hindus fled the valley in a mass-migration.

According to several scholars, approximately 90,000–100,000 Pandits of an estimated population of 120,000–140,000 left in the span of a few weeks in February–March 1990. Other scholars have suggested a higher figure of approximately 150,000 for the exodus. More of them left in the following years so that, by 2011, only around 3,000 families remained.

The reasons for this migration are vigorously contested. In 1989–1990, as calls by Kashmiri Muslims for independence from India gathered pace, many Kashmiri Pandits, who viewed self-determination to be anti-national, felt under pressure. Political violence, especially the killings in the 1990s of a number of Pandit officials, may have shaken the community’s sense of security, although it is thought some Pandits—by virtue of their evidence given later in Indian courts—may have acted as agents of the Indian state.

The opposition has created havoc over the movie, and has kept a united point of movie not doing justice to the incident and the government not doing justice with the victims of 1990’s incident.