![]() “All of you should watch it,” India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a meeting of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) parliamentary group. In his defence, the filmmaker had insisted that “every frame, every word in my film is truth”.Ī few days after The Kashmir Files was released, it received an unusual stamp of approval. Early reviews in the Indian media had found the film deeply Islamophobic, dishonest, and a provocation, and even before the film was released its trailer had invited public interest litigation on the grounds that its “inflammatory scenes are bound to cause communal violence”. It promises to tell the story of the flight from Kashmir of the Pandits, a small Hindu minority among the region’s predominantly Muslim population. The film is set in 1990, amid the first stirrings of the anti-India rebellion that has roiled Indian-administered Kashmir for three decades, and persists into the present. The video is emblematic of public life in the India of 2022, and it was only one of many that tore across the internet following the release of The Kashmir Files, a controversial Bollywood film that opened in an impressive 600 cinemas across India on March 11. “If a Hindu’s blood does not boil,” he raises his voice, prompting his audience to respond: “That’s not blood – it’s water!” “That is why Hindus must protect themselves against the treachery of Muslims and prepare to take up arms.” “You have all seen what happened to the Kashmiri Hindus,” he says, gesturing towards the screen. As the music flows over the end titles of the film the bearded swami begins a chilling exhortation. In one hand he carries a shiny steel trident, a traditional weapon of Hindu gods, and in the other a mobile phone. ![]() A man wearing the saffron turban and robes of a Hindu preacher stands against the plush red interior of a cinema.
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