The recently released Bollywood movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ – a fictitious retelling of the 1990s exodus of Kashmiri Pandits – directed by Vivek Agnihotri possesses all markers of propaganda movie in every frame. Based on limited facts, and copiously scattered distortions, Agnihotri has doggedly avoided the nuance required to understand Kashmir’s history, and painted a sinister picture that for all intents and purposes aims to arouse animosity.
Within the first few minutes into the movie, the audience is acquainted with the antagonist, complete with all identity markers of the traditional skull cap and beard. That’s right, unsurprisingly the right-wing’s favourite director largely relies on unoriginal caricatures of the stereotypical ‘Muslim villain’, complete with machine guns, eye makeup, and periodic ‘Allahu Akbar’ to set a strong Islamophobic undertone.
The slogan of ‘Azadi’ (Freedom) coined by students activists in the JNU campus that had made its way into popular discourse during the Anti-CAA movement in the country was also misappropriated in the movie with the ‘enemy’ chanting them between intervals during their screen-time.
While the story of the Kashmir Pandits’ migration from the Valley requires to be told, filmmakers must possess a certain degree of ethical obligation in retelling such historical traumas to avoid the phenomenon of enhanced victimization and villainization.
In embracing a one-sided narration of the events, the movie conveys dangerous lies painting every Kashmiri Muslim as either a terrorist, militant-sympathizer or separatist. From being showcased as entities that usurp food supplies of the perceived victim, encroaching victim’s land, and inflicting unspeakable acts of violence on-screen, the Kashmiri Muslim in Agnihotri’s movie is an all-round antagonist deserving of hatred.
The movie which has received much praise and admiration from the ruling BJP government has secured tax cuts in several BJP-ruled states. With words of high praise coming from the country’s Prime Minister, BJP Ministers, and MLAs, the movie has become a landmark propaganda production evoking ‘righteous Hindu anger’ from Hindu audiences in theatres across the country.
Makings Of A Propaganda Movie
Encyclopaedia Britannica defines propaganda as a deliberate, systematic effort to manipulate people’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions utilizing symbols. A relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas.
Following the electoral victories of the Nazis in July 1932, Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels as the director of a new propaganda ministry that would work towards gaining control over schools, universities, film, radio, and propaganda.
As the Propaganda Ministry assumed control over the German Press, editors and journalists were expected to follow the directives and instructions handed by the ministry, while the film, radio, and media productions were effectively used to impart the Nazi propaganda.
So what does recalling such a dark chapter in history have to do with the movie, ‘The Kashmir Files’?
For starters, films, in particular, played a central role in delivering, instilling the German public with ideas of ethnic antisemitism, the supremacy of German military power, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined by Nazi ideology. While some Nazi films portrayed Jews as “cultural parasites” “subhuman” creatures infiltrating Aryan society consumed by sex and money, other films glorified Hitler as their supreme leader and the National Socialist movement as a party promoting national pride.
The enthusiasm with which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has welcomed Vivek Agnihotri’s prejudiced film production poses serious questions concerning the end-goal expected from the production.
States including Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, and Goa have ordained tax exemption for the movie, while Karnataka’s Assembly Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri has proactively announced that it will be screened for legislators in the state.
Classifying ‘The Kashmir Files’ As Propaganda Movie
While portraying the pains of the Kashmiri Pandits in the movie addressing the migration of the community, Agnihotri has deliberately erased the struggles of lakhs of Kashmiri Muslims who died during the perceived exodus, many while opposing the militant incursion of separatist elements.
In creating the binary of the ‘Hindu Victim’ and ‘Muslim Perpetrator’, the movie succeeds in sowing sentiments of distrust and anger towards individuals of the Islamic faith. In particular, the impassioned monologue delivered by the movie’s protagonist Krishna in the last portion of the film lays heavy emphasis on the lost supremacy of the victims and redirects the righteous Hindu anger towards the ‘Invading Muslim enemies’.
Psychology Professor Jordan Peterson has explained this phenomenon in the discourse that precedes genocide in genocidal states and said, “The enhancement of a sense of victimization on the part of one of the groups – usually the group that is going to commit genocide – their sense of being victims is heightened by the demagogues who are trying to stir up this sort of hatred by essentially blaming a group of people for their perceived victimization”.
“While it’s true that people have been oppressed, and have suffered. The proper framework to interpret that is to believe that it is characteristic of life. You cannot take it personally in some sense, and cannot divide the world neatly into perpetrators and victims. And then assume you are in the victim class and then assume that gives you access to certain forms of redress. It’s dangerous to do that rapidly.”
In the case of this propaganda movie, it ends on an emotionally charged note leaving the viewing audience with graphic images of torture and persecution on the projected victims committed by the enemy construct – who are shown to be visibly Muslim, with all the audio and visual identity markers to suggest the same – categorizing them as the ‘evil’ other.
The testimony to the effectiveness of such dangerous propaganda can be observed in the various post-movie reactions of the viewing audience. The characteristic of a propaganda film lies in its deliberate attempt at manipulating viewer sentiments to attain the desired reaction to the subjective content being fed to them.
In this case, from the viewing audience chanting genocidal slogans against the community demonized on-screen, to taking oaths of retaliation, the movie works as a catalyst to evoke ‘righteous Hindu anger’ against the propagated enemy.
The danger of such production lies in the sense of urgency they produce in the mindset of the viewing audience to act in the present, which in this case is suggestive of violent outbreaks that are yet to occur.
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