The Kashmir Files

The Kashmir Files
The Kashmir Files Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Vivek Agnihotri
Produced by	Tej Narayan Agarwal Abhishek Agarwal Pallavi Joshi Vivek Agnihotri
Written by	Vivek Agnihotri Saurabh M. Pandey
Starring	Mithun Chakraborty Anupam Kher Darshan Kumar Pallavi Joshi Chinmay Mandlekar Prakash Belawadi Puneet Issar
Music by	Score: Rohit Sharma Songs: Swapnil Bandodkar
Cinematography	Udaysingh Mohite
Edited by	Shankh Rajadhyaksha
Production company	Zee Studios Abhishek Agarwal Arts
Distributed by	Zee Studios
Release date	11 March 2022 (2022-03-11)
Running time	170 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	est. ₹15 crore
Box office	est. ₹242.05 crore

The Kashmir Files is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language thriller film written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri. Produced by Zee Studios, the film is based on the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus during the Kashmir Insurgency. It stars Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi. The film has received mixed reviews, the positive ones praised the cast's performance, particularly that of Anupam Kher.

It was initially set to release theatrically worldwide on 26 January 2022, coinciding with India's Republic Day, but was postponed due to the Omicron variant spread, and finally theatrically released on 11 March 2022. The film was declared tax-free in the states of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Tripura, and became a box office success, within three days of its release, setting several box office records for a small budget Hindi film.

Plot

(Note: The plot frequently switches between the contemporary period (2020) and flashbacks to 1989–1990 throughout the film.)

Circa 1989–1990

In 1989–90 Kashmir, Islamic militants storm and banish Kashmiri Hindu Pandits from the Kashmir valley using the slogans Raliv Galiv ya Chaliv ("convert (to Islam), leave or die") and Mustafa Batte Safa ("with god's grace whole Kashmiri Pandit community will leave valley"). Pushkar Nath Pandit, a teacher, fears for the safety of his son Karan, who has been accused by the militants to be an Indian spy. Pushkar requests his friend Brahma Dutt, a civil servant, for Karan's protection. Brahma travels with Pushkar to Kashmir and witnesses the plight of and violence against Kashmiri Pandits. He takes up the issue with J&K's chief minister, who suspends Brahma.

Militant commander Farooq Malik Bitta, also a former student of Pushkar, breaches Pushkar Nath's house. Karan hides in a rice container but is found and shot by Bitta. Pushkar and his daughter-in-law Sharda plead for their lives. Bitta compels Sharda to eat rice soaked in Karan's blood in exchange for their lives. After Bitta and his gang leave the house, Pushkar takes Karan to the hospital and requests his doctor friend Mahesh Kumar to save Karan's life. However, the hospital gets taken over by militants, who forbid the hospital staff from treating non-Muslims. Subsequently, Karan succumbs to injuries from gunshots.

To ensure their safety, Pushkar and his family are taken by their journalist friend Vishnu Ram to Kaul, a Hindu poet who maintains a cordial relationship with Muslims. Kaul takes in many Pandits into his home but a group of militants arrives to pick Kaul and his son up in the guise of offering protection. The rest of the Pandits leave the place but are later shocked to find the dead bodies of Kaul and his son hanging from trees.

The refugee Pandits from the Kashmir valley settle in Jammu and live on meagre ration and harmful conditions. Brahma is appointed as an advisor to the new Governor of J&K. At his request, the Home Minister visits the Jammu camps where Pushkar demands the removal of Article 370 and the resettlement of Kashmiri Pandits. Brahma manages to get Sharda a government job in Nadimarg in Kashmir, and the family moves there.

One day a group of militants headed by Bitta dress up as Indian Army and arrive at Nadimarg. They round up the Pandits living there. Sharda resists when the militants get hold of her elder son Shiva. Angry Farooq strips her and saws her body in half. He lines up Shiva and the remaining Pandits and shoots them into a mass grave. Pushkar is spared to spread the word about what happened.

2020

In the present day, Sharda's younger son Krishna is brought up by Pushkar. He believes that his parents had died in an accident. A student of ANU, Krishna is under the influence of professor Radhika Menon who is a supporter of Kashmiri separatism. Pushkar's friends Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, and police officer Hari Narain, who had served in Kashmir when Karan was killed, recall the events of Kashmir from their memory that Brahma calls a "genocide".

Krishna contests the ANU's student election. Following the advice of professor Radhika Menon, he holds the Government of India responsible for the issue of Kashmir, much to the anger of Pushkar. Later, when Pushkar dies, Krishna travels to his ancestral home in Kashmir to scatter the ashes per Pushkar's last wish. Menon asks Krishna to shoot some footage in Kashmir to expose the government's supposed atrocities. With the help of one of Menon's contacts, Krishna meets Bitta and accuses him of being responsible for the situation of Pandits. But Bitta declares himself to be a new-age Gandhi who is leading a non-violent democratic movement. Bitta claims that it was the Indian Army, who killed Krishna's mother and brother. When Krishna questions Brahma about this claim, Brahma hands him newspaper cuttings (collected by Pushkar), which had reported that militants disguised as Indian Army soldiers killed them.

Krishna returns to Delhi and gives a scheduled speech for university presidential elections, among the roaring crowd of the ANU campus. He elaborates on the history of Kashmir and the plight of his family and other Kashmiri Hindu victims that he perceived from his trip. This is a bolt from the blue to his mentor Professor Menon and her students. Krishna is then met with resistance and ridicule from students and an eventual embrace by a few.

Cast

• Mithun Chakraborty as IAS Brahma Dutt
• Anupam Kher as Pushkar Nath Pandit
• Darshan Kumar as Krishna Pandit
• Pallavi Joshi as Radhika Menon
• Chinmay Mandlekar as Farooq Malik Bitta
• Prakash Belawadi as Dr. Mahesh Kumar
• Puneet Issar as DGP Hari Narain
• Bhasha Sumbli as Sharda Pandit
• Sourav Verma as Afzal
• Mrinal Kulkarni as Laxmi Dutt
• Atul Srivastava as Vishnu Ram
• Prithviraj Sarnaik
• Amaan Iqbal as Karan Pandit

Production

On 14 August 2019, Agnihotri announced the film with its first look poster with an intent to release it on 15 August 2020, coinciding with India's Independence Day. The subject of the film was the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits that took place between the late 80s and early 90s. Agnihotri touted the film to be the second instalment of his trilogy of "untold stories of independent India", which includes the films The Tashkent Files (2019) and an upcoming The Delhi Files. As a part of the production, Agnihotri claimed to have interviewed more than 700 emigrants from the exodus and recorded their stories over a period of two years. Actor Anupam Kher joined the cast as the lead actor of the film in December 2019.

The first schedule of the film, supposed to take place in March 2020, was called off due the COVID-19 pandemic in India, and was started later the same year in December in Mussoorie. The entire film was shot in 30 days, largely in Mussoorie and Dehradun, along with a week-long shooting schedule in Kashmir, including at Dal Lake. Yograj Singh was removed before the production started in December 2020 for his speeches at the 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest, and Puneet Issar was brought in as the replacement. A line producer, Sarahna died during the production by suicide. The production was wrapped up by 16 January 2021.

Release

Litigations

A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed by an Uttar Pradesh resident which sought a stay on the film's release on grounds that the film may portray the Muslims as killers of the Kashmiri Pandits, presenting what it described as a one-sided view that would hurt the sentiments of Muslims and could trigger violence against Muslims. The PIL was dismissed by the Bombay High Court on grounds that the filer should have challenged the certificate issued to the film by the Central Board of Film Certification.

Another lawsuit was filed by the widow of an Indian Armed Forces squadron leader who died during the Kashmir Insurgency. The widow's lawsuit said that the film portrayed a false depiction of events related to her husband and sought a stay on its release. Accordingly, the court restrained the makers from showing relevant scenes.

Theatrical release

The Kashmir Files was set to release theatrically worldwide on 26 January 2022, coinciding with India's Republic Day, but was postponed due to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. It was initially released in over 630 screens in India on 11 March 2022 and was later increased to 4,000 screens.

Government support

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has endorsed and promoted the film in explicit terms. Union Minister Smriti Irani was one of the most vocal in promoting it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has attacked critics in response to negative reviews, claiming that there is a conspiracy to discredit the film, which according to him "reveals the truth"; he met with Agnihotri to congratulate him, as did Home Minister Amit Shah. The BJP Information and Technology Cell, known for being the party's propaganda unit promoted the film with its head raising calls for people to watch it. Agnihotri was also provided with a Y-category security detail from the Central Reserve Police Force across the country by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Pro-government media were also involved in its promotion; OpIndia—a pro-Hindutva news portal—published several articles raining praises on the film and questioning the motives of critics as well as opposition parties while television channels hosted multiple shows and debates to the same ends.

The film was declared tax-free in multiple BJP governed states—Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh—with calls by several chief ministers and Members of Parliament for "everyone to watch the movie". Assam and Madhya Pradesh granted vacations to government employees and police personnel respectively, if they planned to watch the movie, and Assam, Karnataka and Tripura governments held special screenings of the film. In addition, in the states of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and West Bengal, which have opposition parties in power, BJP legislators have called for their respective state governments to make the film tax-free. Across the country, BJP legislators have bought out screens for audiences to watch the movie for free.

The film's runaway success at the box office has been credited to the extensive government support that it has received.

Critical reception

Kher's performance in The Kashmir Files was generally praised by the film critics.

Stutee Ghosh, reviewing for The Quint, rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and found the film to have made a compelling case for Kashmiri pandits and their "hitherto unaddressed wounds" but wished for more nuance; the cinematography (especially the color palette), Anupam Kher's acting, and realist depictions were praised in particular. Likewise, Jagadish Angadi of Deccan Herald was effusive in his praise — Agnihotri's use of non-linear narratives and strong dialogues, enviable background research, and strong individual performances produced an "intense watch". Avinash Lohana of Pinkvilla rated 3 out of 5 stars, praising the cast performances—particularly that of Kher's—and behind-the-scenes research, but criticized the lack of balance.

Shubhra Gupta reviewing for The Indian Express rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars, criticizing the film for being uninterested in nuance and describing the film as propaganda aligned with the ruling party, that aimed to stoke the "deep-seated anger" of Pandits. However, she also stated that the film did tap "into the grief of the displaced Pandits," and commended Kher's performance. Anuj Kumar reviewing for The Hindu described the film as being composed of "some facts, some half-truths, and plenty of distortions" with brutally intense visualisations and compelling performances, aimed at inciting hatred against Muslims. Rahul Desai reviewing for Film Companion, called the work a "fantasy-revisionist" rant lacking in clarity, craft, and sense where every Muslim was a Nazi and every Hindu, a Jew; with an unconvincing screenplay and weak characters, it was propaganda that strove only to tune in with the Hindu nationalist mood of the nation rather than offer genuine empathy to the displaced victims.

Asim Ali, reviewing for Newslaundry, found the film to have exploited the sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits in pedaling a Hindu Nationalist worldview where no Muslim in Kashmir had any aspiration except persecuting Hindus. Shilajit Mitra of The New Indian Express panned the film with a rating of 1 out of 5 stars and castigated Agnihotri for exploiting the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits by doing away with all nuance in service of a "communal agenda". Rohit Bhatnagar of The Free Press Journal found the screenplay as well as individual performances to be sloppy, thus failing to make any mark; however, he admired the effort that went behind the film and rated it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Political messaging and historical accuracy

The film's producer Vivek Agnihotri claims the film to be a depiction of the "truth of Kashmir". Its key message is that what is known as the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is actually a "genocide" — a fact that it claims to have been kept out of history textbooks and mainstream discourse deliberately. The film's exclusive focus on violence of Muslims on Hindus has been seen by some as promoting Islamophobia. Kashmiri Muslims were also killed during the insurgency, and in greater numbers, often at the hands of Indian security apparatus. The film has also faced charges of historical revisionism and unnuanced storytelling, in what some have deemed a ploy to foster prejudice against Muslims.

The film is seen depicting the Jawaharlal Nehru University as an unpatriotic institution sympathetic to terrorism. The Article 370 of the Constitution that granted nominally autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir, is named as one of the reasons for the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits. Blame is also attached to Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir in 1990; the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi; and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Home Minister in 1990 and a person of Kashmiri heritage. V. P. Singh, the serving prime minister in 1990, and the Bharatiya Janata Party that supported his government, are absolved of responsibility. The central character Krishna Pandit is shown as being provoked by terrorists to turn against the present-day prime minister Narendra Modi. The former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is also subtly derided for attempting to win the hearts of Kashmiris.

A Kashmiri terrorist named Farooq Malik Bitta is depicted in the movie, fashioned after Farooq Ahmed Dar ("Bitta Karate") and Yasin Malik rolled into one. But he is also shown as being involved in the 2003 Nadimarg massacre, which was of neither's doing. Sharda, fashioned after Mrs. Ganjoo, is shown to have been killed in this massacre, which was not the case in real life. Further, local Muslims were portrayed as passive participants in the event and the local cleric even denounced Sharda, moments before she was sawed to death; in reality, the massacre transpired in the dead of the night with almost no witness and the sawing was extrapolated from a separate case involving one Girija Tickoo, some 13 years ago. Neither are the facts of Bitta Karate's long years of incarceration despite a lack of conviction or Malik's eventual conversion to non-violent means of struggle mentioned.

Box office

The Kashmir Files opened to box office with an earnings of ₹3.55 crore, ₹8.50 crore and ₹15.10 crore in India respectively on its first three days, taking its opening weekend collection to ₹27.15 crore and an estimated ₹5 crore in India and overseas respectively. After the response from the first two days, the screens were increased to 2,000 on 13 March 2021. With a collections growth of 323% on its first Monday compared to the release day, the film broke the record for the highest increase in collections for an Indian film on its first Monday. At the end of the first week, the film earned ₹97.30 crore at the Indian box office. After the response from the first week, the screens were increased to 4,000 on 18 March 2021.

The film emerged as a box-office hit within its first two days of release. As of 21 March 2022, the film grossed ₹214.11 crore in India and ₹27.94 crore overseas, for a worldwide gross collection of ₹242.05 crore.

See also

• Shikara
• I Love India
• Fanaa
• Ocean of Tears
• Sheen

External links

• The Kashmir Files on IMDb