The Kashmir Files, a film directed by Vivek Agnihotri, is set to re-release in theatres on January 19—the day that is observed by the Kashmiri Hindu communities as Exodus Day. Agnihotri announced the news on social media.
“ANNOUNCEMENT: TheKashmirFiles is re-releasing on 19th January – The Kashmiri Hindu Genocide Day. This is the first time ever a film is releasing twice in a year. If you missed watching it on BIG SCREEN, book your tickets NOW,” Agnihotri tweeted.
ANNOUNCEMENT: #TheKashmirFiles is re-releasing on 19th January – The Kashmiri Hindu Genocide Day. This is the first time ever a film is releasing twice in a year. If you missed watching it on BIG SCREEN, book your tickets NOW👇. https://t.co/LP0NKokbaehttps://t.co/J7s03w8P31 pic.twitter.com/TNxhq0L68V
— Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) January 18, 2023
The re-release of “The Kashmir Files” directed by Vivek Agnihotri, is scheduled to coincide with ‘Cinema Lovers Day’ on January 20th. On this day, tickets for the film will be available for just Rs 99 in all theatres. The film is also currently available on the streaming platform ZEE5.
The Kashmiri Hindu Genocide Day
The movie scheduled to re-release on January 19 also coincides with the Kashmiri Hindu Genocide Day, the day when millions of Kashmiri Pandits were forced to abandon their homes in the Valley and leave for safer destinations. On this day, in 1990, lakhs of Kashmiri Hindus were forced into exile by the Islamist violence that included targeted killings of Hindus in the valley. There were announcements made from mosques asking Kashmiri Hindu men to leave the valley, leaving their women behind. The chants of ‘convert (to Islam), leave or die’ echoed in the valley.
It has been 32 years and the Pandits are still looking up to the political dispensation for redressal and resettlement in the Valley but have faced opposition from the usual suspects who allege that resettlement would impact the demography in the state. In this context, The Kashmir Files has lent voice to the Kashmiri Pandits awaiting justice and brought their story to the world that was diligently taught to look the other way over their exodus from the Valley due to the rise in Islamic terrorism.
The movie struck a chord with the audience and ended up being one of the highest-grossing Hindi movies in the calendar year 2022. The movie also remained the only Hindi movie to feature in the IMDB’s list of top 10 popular movies of the year, which was otherwise populated by hugely popular South Indian movies.
The Kashmir Files
The film takes viewers back to 1989, when due to rising Islamic Jihad, a huge conflict erupted in Kashmir, forcing the great majority of Hindus to flee the valley. According to estimates, roughly 100,000 of the valley’s total 140,000 Kashmiri Pandit inhabitants migrated between February and March 1990. More of them fled in the years that followed until just about 3,000 families remained in the valley by 2011.
The movie which is based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide begins with the episode of the year 1990 when the then CM of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah had tendered his resignation. Abdullah had lost control back in 1984, probably after he had visited a conference in Kashmir and shared the platform with the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front’s (JKLF) leader Yasin Malik. Later Ghulam Mohammad Shah, who was supported by the Congress party replaced his brother-in-law Farooq Abdullah and assumed the role of the state Chief Minister.
The Kashmir Files’ is one of the few honest attempts in the last three decades to chronicle the Kashmiri Pandit genocide
Ever since it hit the theatres, the film had come under intense fire from the leftist ecosystem, which has sought to denigrate the movie and term the real-life incidents showcased in it as the figment of the director’s imagination. Far from admitting their apathy to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, the detractors often pompously advise them to move towards reconciliation without harbouring the feeling of resentment and retribution. But they fail to grasp that the first step towards reconciliation is acceptance of truth, which has been denied to Kashmiri Pandits for more than thirty years. Even today, when a movie chronicling their genocide is being screened, members of the Left intelligentsia do not shy away from denigrating it.
Additionally, not a single Kashmiri Pandit has picked up weapons to avenge the wrongs wrought upon them. Instead, they have reposed their faith in the judiciary and law enforcement apparatus to deliver them justice. All they desire now is an acknowledgement of the genocide that was assiduously kept under wraps until now.
‘The Kashmir Files’ is one of a few honest attempts made in the last three decades to bring out open the long-suppressed truth about the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. And this is perhaps why it has struck a chord with the audience. The ‘Liberals’ can keep harping that ‘The Kashmir Files’ is a movie directed to gin up anti-Muslim sentiments. But by vilifying the movie, they are only whitewashing the crimes of Islamists and denying the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, which they have been conscientiously doing for more than 3 decades.
