“If you think that your culture is being unfairly portrayed
in news, books and movies, why don’t you produce them yourself?”
I’m old enough to remember how leftists used to the taunt
Hindus who complained of biased representation of their religion in the popular
media. At the height of their cultural monopoly, they didn’t anticipate a day
when Hindus could escape their choke-hold.
Enter, 2014.
Leftists assert that it’s BJP’s ascendance to power that
radicalized people. They’ve got it upside down. It’s the new breed of aware
Hindus, energized and educated by literature on the internet (which left didn’t
set its eyes on yet) that made BJP’s rise possible.
Without the ideological support of these self-educated
people, angry at the systematic injustice meted to their lot for decades, BJP could
still have been a marginal power. Certainly not the juggernaut it has become
today.
No more monopoly
For his seminal work on Veer Savarkar, its author Vikram
Sampath got elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Books by a new
class of Hindu thinkers like Rajiv Malhotra, Sanjeev Sanyal, Sai Deepak J, Harsh
Madhusudan, and Rajiv Mantri among many other notables proved that Hindu
ecosystem can produce world-class books too.
The leftist approach of strangling by silence that worked well against giants like Sitaram Goel and Ram Swarup in the bygone era was no longer effective.
In the early days of internet democracy, Hindus completely overwhelmed the leftists. Between 2009 to 2014, Mediacrooks achieved a cult-following for exposing the mainstream media’s disinformation tactics.
The empire strikes back
Aghast that voices aside from theirs are seeing the light of
the day, leftists struck back in more insidious ways.
The hollow charges of plagiarism against Vikram Sampath and Rajiv Malhotra (previously) are a case in point. Unable to find a way to rebut the logic and evidence in their books, they magnified copy-editing errors and made them appear like plagiarism. Malhotra exposes the malice and misrepresentation in the accusations here. Sampath sued the people making these allegations, and the matter is sub-judice.
Left ecosystem has branded the new crop of mainstream channels who don't toe their line as ‘godi media’. What they forget is that press as an entire class was seen as pro-government before 2014, earning them the epithet ‘presstitutes’.
In an admittedly devious move, the leftists launched the bogey of fake-news to arm-twist social media companies into submission. The fact-checking paradigm is establishment media assuming newer form to re-assert their supremacy. Not convinced? I challenge you to find a single instance of ‘fake news’ concern by the media before 2014.
The final bastion breached
Bollywood was their last bastion. Here, a medieval invader
who killed millions of people and razed thousands of temples was lionized for
his dogged persistence. Not once is it revealed what Ghajini (Muhammad of
Ghazni) achieved with this persistence. Movies like ‘Mission Kashmir’ and ‘Haider’
were seen as apologia for Islamic fundamentalists. We don’t even have to visit
thousands of instances where Brahmin-Banias are portrayed as the epitome of
cruelty, apathy and evil as against the noble fakir who is incapable of doing
anything but good.
The unlikely success of ‘The Kashmir Files’ and the shrill criticism it attracted from the leftist media needs to be seen in this context.
Review of reviews:
Amidst the sea of positive reviews from common people and the subject-group Kashmiri Hindus alike, a few critical reviews stand out. Since it’s tedious to take them apart one by one, let’s analyze their core arguments.
Allegation #1: It’s a propaganda movie
Says who? The Kashmiri Hindus who experienced the killings
and exodus first-hand are univocal in saying that the movie depicts the
real-life incidents faithfully.
So why is telling the truth propaganda? They say the movie ‘weaponizes’ the truth. Shouldn’t they be more concerned about the ‘truth’ than the ‘weaponizing’ aspect? Had the terrorists not done what they did, would a movie depicting that be possible? What they decry is just the inconvenient truth. Aren’t journalists supposed to support a movie that shows truth? (Refer above the epithet they so richly earned.)
Allegation #2: The movie serves the Hindutva ideology and is convenient to the present BJP regime.
So, we’re already past the discussion about whether it’s the
truth. Now, the principal allegation is it supports a certain party?
Let’s take this argument further. Imagine a ruling party being
credibly accused of corruption. Would media consider it right to suppress this
news because it would end up benefiting the opposition party, whose ideology
they strongly oppose? (Those politically aware between 2009 to 2014 needn’t use
imagination to guess what media would do).
Truth will topple those who have built castles on the
edifice of lies. If it’s toppling your system, you should recognize where you
stood all along.
Allegation #3: The movie shows nothing new. The facts of Kashmir are well-known.
They were well known only amongst the politically-aware. If the common man was as much aware, the movie wouldn’t have become a blockbuster. And, you wouldn’t have seen so many people confessing that they never knew the monstrosity that Kashmiri Hindus had faced.
Allegation #4: Vivek Agnihotri is a third-rate director with a ‘secular’ past.
Agnihotri’s film, not Agnihotri, is the topic of discussion here. If his film-making abilities are of interest to anyone, they’re free to analyze them.
That a 15-crore budget movie has earned over 200 crores so
far is a validation of the fact that the movie was indeed well-made. People
don’t flock theatres to see ‘propaganda’ by a ‘third-rate’ director. Those
claiming PM Modi’s endorsement helped the movie must realize that a movie about
Modi himself could barely elicit the similar response from people.
Yes, directors have their highs and lows. Some films work,
some don’t. But were such choicest abuses used for any other director with
similar record? Do you recollect media characterizing any other director as
‘third-rate’?
About his ideological leanings in the past, every person
evolves with time. Only ideological fanatics can stay stubbornly same in the
face of new facts. Most of us can
understand if a person changes his opinions over time in the light of new
facts.
Allegation #5: The context is missing. Many Muslims were killed too.
Were Muslims killed because they were Muslims? No.
Were Hindus were killed because they were Hindus. Yes.
Does such a simple logic really miss these eminent
reviewers? The motivation of the perpetrators is the key here. The terrorists are
on record stating unambiguously that their purpose is jihad – the extermination
of Kaffirs. We are only taking them on their word.
Did terrorists kill Muslims too? Yes. But when Muslims were
killed it was because they were suspected of supporting Indian forces. Were
their families brutalized like Hindus? Did they permanently leave their homes
like Hindus did? Did loudspeakers from mosques terrorize Muslims with “Raliv,
Galiv ya Chaliv” (Convert, Die or Run). Were they intimidated with slogans identical
to: “We want Kashmir without Hindu men, with Hindu women”?
Allegation #6: If Muslims really wished to exterminate Hindus, they could have finished them off. The fact that Kashmir Hindus are alive shows that they had nothing against them.
Quoting Sita Ram Goel on a similar topic: “The logic here is purely deductive (formal). Suppose a person is subjected to a murderous assault, but he survives because he fights back. Deductively it can be concluded that the person never suffered a murderous assault because otherwise he could not have been alive! But this conclusion has little relevance to the facts of the case.”
Since many Kashmiris ran away in the dead of night with just their clothes, the terrorists probably fell short of achieving their goal in toto. Further, they did accomplish one of their stated objectives: to free Kashmir of Hindus.
In a similar vein, can we argue that Nazi Germany never committed Holocaust? According to this logic, that’s par the course, for Jews are not just strong as a community today, but they also have their own home-country Israel. If Hitler really wished Jews dead, how they not just survive but thrive?
Allegation #7: Anyone really empathetic towards the Kashmiri Hindu cause (including the cast, director, or any random person who thinks the film was good) should have helped them long ago. Making and supporting the film today reeks of propaganda.
As the media doesn’t tire of hinting, this film wouldn’t
have seen the light of the day in previous regime. Why – the Congress
government in Rajasthan sought to ban the film even with the limited power they
have today. The movie got this far only because the left ecosystem doesn’t call
the shots anymore.
As to what the cast (Anupam Kher, against whom much of ire
is directed) was doing at the peak of insurgency, it’s possible that they
couldn’t muster the courage to openly comment and support the cause. As much as
we appreciate boldness, if Kashmiri Hindus who had seen the apathy of
Government and ruthlessness of terrorists feel unsafe to voice their concern,
it’s understandable.
After all these years, it’s possible that people feel safe
to come out in the open and tell the truth. That these people have found
strength in the present regime, tells a lot, though not what they want us to
think. It rather implies that the leftist ecosystem is still unable process
people having a view different from theirs for legitimate reasons.
And, let’s throw the ball in their court. There was a 30-year
interlude between Kashmiri Hindu exodus and the movie ‘Kashmir Files’. Why
didn’t anyone who cries hoarse today do anything to support their cause. Why
wasn’t even a single movie made about Kashmiri Hindus? Why didn’t a single
media outlet give them voice? They had all the time in the world to do
something and yet they chose to brush it under the carpet or use unfounded grievances to justify militants.
This being their record, why does it hurt them when someone
does puts on spotlight on the pain Kashmiri Hindus suffered.
Allegation #8: The makers have milked the Kashmiri Hindu’s pains for profit.
It’s puzzling when these people conflate profit-making with
evil. The drive to make profits is legitimate and it fuels the economy. Like
any other industry, movie-making is driven by the desire for profit. We must
only be concerned if the path to profit is paved with illegal or illegitimate
activities.
And, do these media people work for free? Don’t they get
paid for their reporting? Aren’t they milking unfortunate events to make
profits?
Finally, these self-same people are full of praise for the
new crop of ‘Dalit’ movies from Tamil film industry. These very people laud
such film-makers (Pa Ranjith films for instance) for effectively using cinema
as a propaganda vehicle. So, it’s great as long as they do it. It only becomes
problematic when others start using their playbook.
The entitlement is baffling...
Before I close, I found a Newslaundry video particularly eye-opening. Let us for a moment forget the arrogant and aggressive posturing by the gentleman. When introducing his mentor, he takes great pain to emphasize: only our people are “real journalists”. It’s fine to feel that your mentor is the best in the game. That human emotion is relatable. What gets to us is “real” journalist.
It gets even better when the “mentor” reproaches the film as
nobody from the film’s unit ever approached her. How much more tone deaf can
these people get? Here’s a movie that has received the stamp of credibility and
approval from none other than the subject-group itself: the Kashmiri Hindus. Check
their reactions across the social media to ascertain how accurately the film
depicted their collective tragedy. Yet, for these leftists, the Kashmiri Hindus
are not the subject matter experts about Kashmiri Hindus. It’s them and them
alone who can have the final word on any subject.
This kind of cultural authoritarianism is precisely what the Hindus are rebelling against. As a character in the film puts it so eloquently: "The government might be theirs. But the system is ours."
It’s this monopoly that aware Hindus are striving to break free of. And, Kashmir Files is a step forward in this direction.
Comments
Post a Comment