Opinion ‘The Kashmir Files’ National Award win: In cinema too, the bulldozer wins
Giving the Nargis Dutt Award for the Best Film on National Integration to a film that is divisive changes the meaning of the term. Integration cannot mean subjugation
How the story of a trauma is told is important, not just the fact of its telling. The Kashmir Files does not leave any room for Kashmir's Muslims and Pandits to live together. (File) In the broadest sense, there are two ways of working towards “national integration” in a country as diverse, unequal and with as many faultlines as India. The first is encapsulated in the Preamble to the Constitution – through liberty, equality and fraternity. The second is symbolised, of late, by the bulldozer. It rides roughshod over decency and empathy. It says the only truth is mine and reconciliation is possible only through submission. In this imagination of the nation, the only possible art is propaganda.
It should come as no surprise, perhaps, that The Kashmir Files has been given a National Award this year. The film was praised by top BJP leaders and given massive tax breaks in many BJP-ruled states at the time of its theatrical release last year. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself rose to defend it against its critics: “The entire jamaat (gang) that raised the flag of freedom of expression has been furious for 5-6 days. Instead of reviewing the film on the basis of facts and art, there’s a conspiracy to discredit it,” he said.
Let’s be clear. Vivek Agnihotri had every right to make a bad, propaganda film in which not a single Muslim character – not even children – is shown as being decent. In the name of free speech, he can even caricature, dismiss and selectively borrow from a trauma that has been so twisted for political (and now, box office) ends, that those who have lived it are often reduced to pawns. But that does not make it a good film. Just as an election win does not wash away every governance failure and moral stain, box office success does not justify bigotry and the exploitation of the very real suffering and exodus of a community.
The Kashmir Files is not the first film celebrated by the BJP to have won a National Award during its tenure. In 2019, Uri: The Surgical Strike won multiple awards for its craft, Chalo Jeete Hai (a short film that presents a fictionalised account of the PM’s childhood) won for the best film on family values and Toilet: Ek Prem Katha bagged a prize for choreography. All three films, in one way or the other, either helped or portrayed the ruling party and government’s agenda. However, they were, in their own way, not as dangerous as The Kashmir Files. And the awards they were given were for specific forms of excellence. Those awards were, at least defensible.
Here’s why the one to The Kashmir Files is not.
Giving the Nargis Dutt Award for the Best Film on National Integration to a film that is divisive and bigoted changes the meaning of the term to the one associated with the bulldozer.
Many defenders of the film have argued that it, at last, told the story of an exodus and violence that has long been ignored by mainstream cinema and TV. That in the tales of Kashmiris’ suffering, the story of the horrors faced by the Pandit community has been ignored. And, as a result, “integration” premised on fraternity and equality has been impossible.
So, does The Kashmir Files address that lacuna? Does it open up a space for dialogue?
How the story of a trauma is told is important, not just the fact of its telling. The Kashmir Files does not leave any room for Kashmir’s Muslims and Pandits to live together. If every Muslim is (as the film portrays) an “anti-national” and Hindu hater, how can there be any way forward that is not violent?
Unlike the commercial, song-and-dance awards doled out at sponsored events, India’s National Awards have a long history of recognising films for their art, craft and social and moral messages. The Kashmir Files upends that tradition. Perhaps now, in cinema – as in politics – only might is right.
aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
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