Modi supporters jump on film spreading hatred against Muslims
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Indian Hindu hardliners support a new film endorsed by PM Narendra Modi that stirs sectarian hatred.
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The Modi-backed "The Kashmir Files" makes the goals of Modi's party quite explicit, and feeds into India's Islamophobic discourse
Hindu hardliners are going to the movies en-masse to see a controversial film backed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that depicts the mass flight of Hindus from Kashmir 30 years ago.
"The Kashmir Files", which stirs up hatred against India's sizeable Muslim minority, is tackling themes closer to the political agenda of Modi's Hindu nationalist government, according to critics.
The movie, which was released last month, is already one of India's highest-grossing films this year and depicts how hundreds of thousands of Hindus fled Indian-administered Kashmir in 1989-90 amid sectarian strife.
Authorities have made entrance to the film that has been made free of tax in many states, and police were given time off to go watch the movie, according to AFP.
Numerous videos shared on social media have shown people in cinemas calling for revenge and for Muslims to be killed, with one clip showing a known Hindu monk, Swami Jeetendranand, leading a nationalist crowd amid anti-Muslim chants.
"We think that we are safe, but we are safe as long as they don't attack us," he rails, adding "(Muslims) are not only dangerous to India but to the whole world."
Open call for genocide is passé. A sadhu, Swami Jeetendranand is motivating young children at the screening of The Kashmir Files to take to violence in the name of religion. Says Lord Shiva mandated it. pic.twitter.com/qAi2KABqHQ
— Clarion India (@TheClarionIndia) March 23, 2022
A Modi policy
In 2019, Modi's administration, which is often accused of marginalizing and vilifying India's large 200-million minority of Muslims, revoked Kashmir's partial autonomy and imposed a security blanket on it.
Critics said the movie makes no reference to the persecution of the region's Muslims either before the 1990s sectarian strife, or since then.
Sanjay Kaw, a Kashmiri Pandit journalist said "the movie only talks about the exodus of the Hindus, and only refers to the failure of the state, but not the things that led to the situation."
"One of my relatives was shot dead... barely 300 meters away from our home," Kaw told AFP.
The movie's director Vivek Agnohotri, a Modi fan, said "Nobody asked Steven Spielberg why there were a few violent reactions to 'Schindler's List'," referring to the 1993 movie on the Holocaust.
"Give (people) the right to react the way they want to react. As long as they are not hurting anybody physically, I think it's fine," Agnihotri added.
But the movie definitely has an agenda, according to documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak, who said it feeds into India's Islamophobic discourse.
"I think the film makes those goals (of the BJP) quite explicit: which is basically about setting up Kashmir as a kind of ideological pole for their vision of a new resurgent Hindu India."
