In 2022, when “The Kashmir Files” was released in India, it generated unprecedented communal euphoria. Set at the start of a long-running separatist insurgency that began in 1989, the Hindi film is about the violent attacks against Kashmiri Pandits, a Hindu minority in the Muslim-majority region, that led to their mass exodus. After the film’s release, social media platforms were filled with videos of audiences raising anti-Muslim slogans in packed theaters, entreating people to “shoot the traitors.” Hindu nationalist activists called for “revenge” against Muslims, while critics panned the film as a propagandist production that painted Muslims as barbaric, exaggerated the death toll of the Pandits and sidestepped the fact that even Kashmiri Muslims were killed during the events.
One part of the Pandit community accused the filmmaker, Vivek Agnihotri, of appropriating their suffering for his anti-Muslim agenda, while others claimed that viewing the film was a cathartic experience. At the International Film Festival of India in 2022, the chief juror, Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, called it “vulgar propaganda” and its submission “inappropriate,” stirring a controversy that prompted Israeli Ambassador Naor Gilon to intervene and apologize. Agnihotri, however, compared his film to Steven Spielberg’s 1994 Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List,” describing it as a “soft, emotional film” about Hindu genocide.
Supporters of the film included Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Hindu nationalist leaders, who lauded it for showing what they said was the “truth” and an overlooked aspect of Kashmir’s history.
“They are shocked that the truth that was hidden for so many years is out and is backed by facts,” Modi said. Despite the polarizing responses, “Kashmir Files” became the third-highest-grossing film of 2022, earning over $41 million.
This fervor, however, was in sharp contrast to the reception that Dibakar Banerjee, one of the most distinctive filmmakers in Hindi cinema, received after he directed a film with a similar setting. In 2019, the streaming giant Netflix commissioned Banerjee to produce “Tees” (“30”), telling the story of three generations of a Muslim family living in India across three timelines. The first generation lives in the 1980s, when Kashmir was simmering with communal tension, and the Pandits were compelled to flee the valley. The second generation lives in the present, as rising Hindu nationalism has led to increasing discrimination against the community. This prejudice flares up in distinct ways such as Muslims being unable to find rental accommodation in a city such as Mumbai, which is a historic melting pot of people of multiple faiths and cultures. The third generation lives in 2042, in a dystopian future where Muslims are assigned scores based on stringent social etiquette. These scores, in turn, regulate their access to public spaces.
By 2022, when the film was ready, Netflix was not. The streaming giant backed out, citing uncertainty over releasing “Tees” at a time when communal and political tensions in India were on the rise, leaving Banerjee to arrange private screenings and find a buyer for his film himself. He has yet to find one.
This story was originally published in newlinesmag.com. Read the full story here.
