Desecration of a national award

It is ironic that The Kashmir Files, a film that has been widely criticised for promoting hatred and divisiveness, has won the Nargis Dutt Award for the Best Feature Film in the National Integration category at the National Film Awards announced on Friday. The film was controversial in many ways and had attracted strong reactions for its treatment of the migration from Kashmir Valley of Kashmiri Pandits, who were harassed, intimidated and many even killed by militants, into Jammu and other parts of the country in the 1990s. The conferment of the award on the film has been termed as “shocking” by many. It is not just political leaders from Kashmir and from the opposition parties who have found the award wrong and inappropriate. There is wider criticism which concerns the falling standards of judgement and the motives and considerations behind the grant of awards in arts, literature and other fields. 

The film, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, a known BJP propagandist, presents a very biased, exaggerated and unreal account of the migration of the Pandits. It is sensational and over-dramatised, and it is political and propagandist in nature. The politics of the film is clear from the fact that no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself endorsed it and BJP-ruled states promoted and supported it with tax waivers. It vilified Kashmiri Muslims as a community, made them the villains in the Pandits’ story, and tried to direct hatred and anger toward Muslims in general. The film was made in such a way as to appeal to the gross emotions and passions of anger, hatred and revenge. India’s mainstay cinema has always tried to promote peace, friendship and brotherhood between communities. But The Kashmir Files did the opposite, and deliberately. That is why honouring it with a well-known award for national integration is a mockery of the award itself. 

An internationally known film director, Nadav Lapid, who was chairman of the jury of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa last year, had criticised the entry of The Kashmir Files in the festival and described it as “vulgar propaganda”. He had said it was a “vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section”. It is clear that the film was given the award on political considerations. Politics has always influenced honours and awards given by governments. But it is the first time that a film and its maker are being awarded for preaching hatred and creating divisions among people. It devalues and degrades the award. The award is named after Nargis Dutt, who with her life and art stood for peace and friendship between Hindus and Muslims. Giving it to a hate film insults her memory, too.