The Kashmir Files
The Kashmir Files is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri. The film presents a fictional storyline centred around the 1990 exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Kashmir Valley in Indian-administered Kashmir. It depicts the exodus and the events leading up to it as a genocide, a framing considered inaccurate by scholars. The film claims that such facts were suppressed by a conspiracy of silence.
The Kashmir Files stars Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, and Pallavi Joshi. The plot follows a Kashmiri Hindu college student, raised by his exiled grandfather and shielded from the knowledge of the circumstances of the death of his parents. After his grandfather's death, the student, who had come to believe at college that the exodus was benign, becomes driven to uncover the facts of his family's deaths. The plot alternates between the student's quest in the present time, 2020, and his family's travails of thirty years before. The film was released in theatres on 11 March 2022. It was a commercial success.
The Kashmir Files received mixed reviews upon release, with praise directed to its cinematography and the performances of the ensemble cast, and as an improvement over Shikara, another film released in 2020 based on the Kashmir exodus. However its storyline attracted criticism for attempting to recast established history and propagating Islamophobia. Supporters have praised the film for showing what they say is an overlooked aspect of Kashmir's history. Made on a production budget of approximately to the film grossed worldwide, becoming the third highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022.
At the 69th National Film Awards, The Kashmir Files won 2 awards – Best Feature Film on National Integration and Best Supporting Actress. At the 68th Filmfare Awards, the film received 7 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
Plot
The plot frequently switches between the contemporary period set in the year 2020 and flashbacks to 1989–1990 throughout the film.Circa 1989–1990
In 1989–90 Kashmir, Islamic militants storm and banish Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley using the slogans Raliv, Chaliv ya Galiv and Al-Safa Batte Dafa. Pushkar Nath Pandit, a teacher, fears for the safety of his son Karan, who has been accused by the militants of being 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 violence against Kashmiri Pandits. He takes up the issue with the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, 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 begs his doctor friend Mahesh Kumar to bring an ambulance and 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 the 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 under the guise of offering protection. The rest of the Pandits leave the place but are later shocked to find corpses of Kaul and his son hanging from trees.
The refugee Pandits from the Kashmir valley settle in Jammu and live on meagre ration and in poor 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 members of the Indian Army and arrive at Nadimarg. They start rounding 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 record 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 the 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 files of newspaper cuttings, reporting that militants, disguised as Indian Army soldiers, had killed them.
Krishna returns to Delhi and gives his scheduled speech for the university presidential elections to a roaring crowd at the ANU campus. He elaborates on the history of Kashmir and the plight of his family and other Kashmiri Hindu victims that he had discovered from his visit. This shocks his mentor professor Menon and her other students, and Krishna is initially met with resistance and ridicule at the meeting. Some students eventually welcome and applaud Krishna's speech.
Cast
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 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.
Produced by Tej Narayan Agarwal, Abhishek Agarwal, Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Agnihotri under the banners of Zee Studios, IAmBuddha and Abhishek Agarwal Arts, the film was made on a budget of approximately to.
Soundtrack
The music of the film is composed by Rohit Sharma and Swapnil Bandodkar.Release
Certification
The Indian Censor board gave The Kashmir Files A certificate, which is restricted to adults. According to CBFC, it is a feature film in the genre 'drama' and there is no mention of the film being commercial/documentary in the CBFC records.In the United Kingdom, the British Board of Film Classification passed the film uncut with a 15 classification on 9 March 2022 for ‘strong bloody violence, threat, brief scene of sexual humiliation’.
Australian censors gave the film an 18+ plus rating.
In New Zealand, the censorship clearance was mired in controversy. The film had originally received an R16 classification from the New Zealand Classification Office. However, with the Muslim community raising concerns about potential incitement of Islamophobia, the rating was raised to R18; David Shanks, the Chief Censor of New Zealand, highlighted "the nature and intensity of the violence and cruelty depicted" and defended the new age restriction to be in consistence with Australia and India. Leader of the New Zealand First party Winston Peters accused the Classification Office of censoring the film based on its political content, and was supported by other politicians.
In Singapore, the film was banned by the censor authority after a consultation with the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of Home Affairs; the film's "provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims" was held to have the potential of disrupting "social cohesion and religious harmony". The ban has been argued as a strong-handed way of protecting the country's secularism, an approach of pre-emptive actions that the People's Action Party, the governing party of Singapore, has long been undertaking to maintain racial and religious societal harmony.