Review: The Kashmir Files opened, the bandage ripped off. What do you see?

These are stories that need to be told and, for many soft separatists, it may be a hard pill to swallow. Think about it for a second, if there have been such brutal atrocities that the Kashmiri Hindus have gone through, would you not keep your political leanings aside for the sake of humanity and hope for some closure for the first generation victims in their right to justice?

It wasn’t easy to watch The Kashmir Files. It wasn’t just another movie. Cinematic brilliance aside, it was an eye-opener for all those of us who sat for the screening at the PVR Plaza cinema at Connaught Place. The fact that Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Agnihotri spent 4 years to make the film, with such extensive detailed research of close to 700 hard-hitting interviews that are testimonials from first-generation victims of the genocide of the Kashmiri Pandits community in the 1990s is in itself not a small feat.

I am not a history major in my formal education. But I have studied history like any other student as a module. After watching The Kashmir Files, it shakes my soul today that history books, academics alike have skipped pressing on the excruciating and extensive details of the plight of Kashmiri Pandits in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. Mind you, this film tells you nothing new. But tells you and reminds you and forces you to think why we can’t look at history in the eye without any shame. Makes you angry again as to why a Yasin Malik and Syed Ali Shah Geelani were allowed to get tacit support from politicians and intellectuals like Arundhati Roy and many more. Why those intellectuals who constantly bat for the ‘azadi’ of Kashmir and call it ‘fundamentally a call for justice’ don’t see the other side of the rightful occupants of the land being forced into mass departure when that is their land and that is their country their home. 3 odd hours of encapsulation of that trauma is spine chilling. It makes you re-think why farcical negotiations were even on the table when Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate (whose character is played well by Chinmay Mandlekar) has openly confessed to killing Kashmiri Hindus? Why is the conviction rate so low and why was he never sent to the gallows or even given life imprisonment? The Kashmiri Pandit’s betrayal is evidently well documented in this film and makes you ask this question, why is Farooq Ahmed Dar, the self-admitted butcher of Kashmiri Pandits still roaming scot-free?

Watch the trailer of The Kashmir Files here:

The film begins with the real story of the killing of Satish Tickoo by JKLF terrorists and later shows how they walked armed around Srinagar searching for the Pandits like blood-sucking leeches only to kill them after spotting them, wiping off families and destroying them. The JKLF terrorists did not spare the women; they did not spare the kids. That scene sets the tone and is the most defining start to files that rip the bandage off and what you see later, for many would justify the abrogation of Article 370, at least in principle, without getting into the debate over the legality of it all.

As a side note, any kind of religious fundamentalism is a strict no go. I thought I should say this before I get labelled ‘islamophobic’ or ‘right wing’ or whatever it is that the polarized world hurriedly labels you these days. I’m a centrist and feel a need to emphasise this while writing this piece and this does not serve as an apology to either side of the political spectrum.

The Kashmir Files opens up your eyes to stories that were untold - the separatist sympathizing politicians, the impact of religious extremism, a press that ignored the harsh reality on the ground and shows how there was a glorification of terrorists as some kind of revolutionaries. And shows you true, real facts on how, despite this subjugation and bloodshed, the Kashmiri Pandits did not pick up arms. It is heartwarming as the film makes a conspicuous effort to highlight that fact.