‘The Kashmir Files’ divides India: Bollywood triumph or anti-Muslim propaganda?

Its supporters call the film, which has been backed by PM Narendra Modi and his ruling party, a masterful, true-to-life depiction of a historic tragedy

But for its opponents, it’s crude, inflammatory propaganda that’s intended to incite anti-Muslim hatred and weaponise the BJP’s Hindu-nationalist agenda

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A woman walks past a poster for “The Kashmir Files” inside a cinema in Mumbai last week. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:01pm, 21 Mar 2022Updated: 5:41pm, 21 Mar 2022

As the lights come up and the credits begin to roll on The Kashmir Files, a Hindu man gets to his feet to yell at his fellow movie-goers: “Shoot the traitors.” “Death to Muslims.” “We will have our revenge.”

Soon other voices join him, their hate-filled shouts briefly transforming the cinema into a murderous anti-Muslim rally, with the crowd whipped into a frenzy by the controversial film they have just seen. Sometimes, the Islamophobic chanting spills out into the streets outside.

These are the disturbing scenes, captured on video and shared widely on social media, that have played out at cinemas across India showing The Kashmir Files. The Hindi-language drama, released earlier this month, has become a box-office smash – even as it polarises Indian viewers.

People queue to watch ‘The Kashmir Files’ at a cinema in Mumbai on Thursday last week. Photo: Reuters

For its defenders, the film is a masterful Bollywood depiction of one of the darkest chapters of modern Indian history: the exodus of some 100,000 Hindus from the Kashmir Valley following an uprising in 1990. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the movie his endorsement and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has actively sought to promote it.

But The Kashmir Files’ critics call it a crude, inflammatory piece of propaganda that’s intended to incite anti-Muslim hatred and weaponise the BJP’s Hindu-nationalist agenda. Singapore, the UAE and Qatar have even banned it from being screened, according to director Vivek Agnithori, who was assigned a high-level security detail by the Indian government after he received death threats in response to the film.

Mass exodus

Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Hindus, also known as Pandits, fled the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley between January and March 1990 as it became increasingly wracked by violence amid a nascent separatist insurgency that continues to this day.

Faced with attacks and threats against their lives, many Pandits fled the region with nothing but the clothes on their backs – leaving behind ancestral lands, homes, businesses and possessions. Some ended up destitute in camps for the internally displaced.