The genocide and subsequent exodus of Hindus from the Kashmir valley in 1990 is a blot on India. Overnight, these people were forced to vacate their houses and settle in different parts of the country as refugees because they were Hindus. Even after so many years, they haven’t been able to return to their homeland. Normally, Bollywood is adept at milking tragedies for box office success. But in this case, there haven’t been many movies that have showcased the plight of the Hindus except for the 2004 movie Sheen and the 2020 film Shikara, which conveniently turned a poignant subject into a Bollywood-style love story. In 2022, Vivek Agnihotri promises to deliver a definitive film of the plight of Hindus with his latest offering The Kashmir Files.

Parts of The Kashmir Files of 2 hours 40 minutes may leave you stunned. This is a bold film attempt for making evidence based documentaries about real life horrific stories, tragic genocides, abnormal torture, brutal gangrapes, other heinous crimes and forced exodus of the original Hindu population of Kashmir during 1989 – 1990. This film trailer not only showcases popular identified criminal faces for the first time but also the indifference of different Indian governments as well as hypocritical behaviour of various political parties towards the Kashmir victims of 1989 – 1990 along these years since tragic incident.

The Kashmir Files works as a time travel, in which work has been done to connect the time of 1990 with the present generation. A student studying in Delhi goes to Kashmir to immerse his grandfather’s ashes. It is here that he meets Dada’s friends and then old stories come out about how Kashmiri Pandits were driven out of their homes. From here the story has been twisted in a rewind, which depicts how things spread in the time of 1990 and Kashmiri Pandits were driven away. Friendship in this swamp, showing one aspect of the government machinery, has been taunted.

I suppose the best people to critique it would be the native Kashmiris who had to flee the pogroms in through the late 80s and the 90s. People who saw the violence and heard the threats and faced the dangers. I’m sure there are lakhs of those around, it wasn’t so long ago.

In fact most of the non kashmiri people are not exactly aware about what happened in Kashmir before the pandits were forced to leave their homes. What atrocities and humiliation they had to face while the rest of the world including the governments of the mutely watched and did nothing. I am sure this movie have depicted some of those horrors. Any movie made on controversial issues is bound to draw controversies and criticisms. But the bold film makers who don’t fear anyone go ahead with such projects and they should be applauded for it.

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