‘Kashmir Files’: Can this ‘Hindutva blockbuster’ change Bollywood?

We may just be a few rants away from Netizens describing ‘The Kashmir Files’ (Hindi) as a Hindutva blockbuster. In Bollywood, for decades, communalism has been shown only in one context: Hindu majoritarian. ‘Rang De Basanti’ is an example. When you question the anti-Indian intolerance inherent to the Azad Kashmir movement, you are dubbed a Hindutva acolyte. That’s why, even if it is wrong, ‘Kashmir Files’ can be described as a Hindutva movie. 

Bollywood has been described by Hindutva votaries as a cesspool of Leftist, anti-Hindu, and even soft-Islamist sympathizers. Films like ‘Haidar’ and ‘Shikara’ were targeted by Hindu right-wingers for peddling alleged propagandist narratives over Kashmir. 

But ‘The Kashmir Files’ doesn’t appease anti-Hinduism forces, Hindutva votaries are saying. “The film speaks the truth about hatred for Hindus that led to their ethnic cleansing in Kashmir. With this film becoming a hit and even a potential blockbuster, Bollywood producers/directors/writers will show interest in telling the truth as it is in many other contexts. Some day, we may see films centered on the Islamist ideology that led to the Partition, about the Godhra train carnage in 2002 where 58 Hindus were burnt alive, so on and so forth,” says a Facebook user. 

“Multiple movies needed, just like the holocaust. Hope the success of ‘Kashmir Files’ inspires many other competent directors. Bollywood as a business, still toeing Nehruvian narratives, should wake up to this new populism,” wrote Gabbbar Singh, a Twitter user.