Some Whispers - The Kashmir Files

 

The real rub started after 1971. After unsuccessfully trying a couple of times to wrest Kashmir away forcibly, and more after India used the same stratagem to excise Pakistan and help Bangladesh attain its independence, the military brass in Pakistan felt a grievous personal insult, for it was not just a loss of war and land, it hit at the core foundational philosophy of Pakistan that Muslim brotherhood, whether Bangla, Sindhi, Punjabi or Pasthun, was one and religion always trumped regional identity. There was a marked change from there on in Pakistan's thinking which abandoned the idea of conventional warfare and instead sought to frustrate, weaken, trouble India by constantly poking at its vulnerabilities. In a multitudinal nation as India and during times when resource crunch was high, there always existed pockets of discontentment about mistreatment, step-motherly attitude of the state, high-handedness and above all, spotty implementation of the federalist principles, leading rise of militant struggles across the four corners of the country, of which Pakistan bet on Punjab first. 80s was the decade that saw the rise and fall of Khalistani movement, which reached its zenith at the time the Indian army entered The Golden Temple to flush out the militant elements taking refuge in its premises. Pakistan saw a window of opportunity to avenge the loss of Bangla land and went all in providing material/materiel support hoping the Khalistani forces would rise to the same level as Mukthi Bahini a decade ago. For days, months and years, the separatist movement raged on and what started as screaming bold headline items in newspapers regarding the human toll (army, militants and civilians) gradually went beneath the fold and then deep inside as the coverage also shrunk from multiple columns to mere inches. For a variety of reasons - strong tactics of army and local police, disillusionment among the youth of Pakistan's intentions and importantly the cooling off of the population on the idea of a separate homeland - the Khalistani movement petered out by the start of the 90s, leaving Pakistan nothing to show for for a decade worth of toil.

In the next iteration, in Kashmir, Pakistan seems to have learned its lesson. Where in Punjab, it could only be an outsider in a fight between the Sikhs and Hindus and so could only portray a friend role by the way of enemy's enemy, the change of tactics in Kashmir to be a direct stakeholder in the militancy by invoking the Muslim brethren philosophy paid rich dividends in its goal to frustrate, weaken and trouble India, with the help of constantly changing and evolving alphabet soup of splinter groups (JKLF, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jamaad-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahiddeen and many such). Even with strategists on both sides agreeing that the Kashmir conflict will remain a stalemate, for however long Pakistan keeps hosting and supporting the separatist ideology and the Indian state resolutely firm in its stand to not cede even an inch, Kashmir, at least in the papers, had gone the way of Punjab a long time ago, from columns to mere inches. Three decades on, with multiple changes in goverments (and governances) on both sides, and with a variety of ebbs and flows in the style and M.O. of how the conflict played out in regards to agression and retaliation, the issue doesn't seem to have moved an inch in either direction and neither is there any hope of the change in status quo anytime soon.

Given this context, it is indeed surprising to find "The Kashmir Files" pay little to no heed to the Pakistan angle in the entire Kashmiri Pandit crisis and paint their exodus from the valley as a straight and strict Hindu vs Muslim communal issue and even double down on its premise at every turn and instant with amped up rhetoric and propaganda that befits a training video of an extremist organization than in one that aims to call to attention the plight of the Pandits. That it (sledge)hammers every tragic event that befell the Pandits - drive by shootings, selective targeting, insult and injury, and even the final massacre - using the same muslim mallet, painting each and every character is strict monochromatic hues - hindu - good, muslim - bad, administration - worse, media - worst - does great disservice to the cause of the Pandits by focussing solely on the other half of the residents in the valley, without delving into the actual machinations of the systematic and selective victimization. It is akin to putting on trial the soldiers who pulled the trigger and killed their fellow countrymen in the Jallianwalah Bagh massacre, while absolving the role and responsibility of General Dyer. Yet another broad stroke in a vignette full of them is an Arundhati Roy a la character who is a symbolic representative of the bleeding heart intelligensia of the country, sympathetic to the struggle of the Kashmiris vehemently opposing the Indian occupation, who keeps insisting on finding a villain in every story/narrative that people could rally against, riling up the student body of a famed Delhi university (a stand-in for JNU) to sloganeer against the Indian state for the atrocities foisted upon the Kashmiri people (meaning, its muslim half only). It is indeed ironic that by the end of the three hour polemic, covering the 3 decade struggle of the Pandits, the movie wilfully refuses to find/acknowledge who the real villain is and instead pins the entire blame of all things Islamic.

Can there be empathy towards the Pandit without downright hating the muslim element - no, not just the militants, but non-militants too - responsible for it, is a question that lingers on at the end of the movie. If the muslim element is indeed the villain, per the movie, and the Pandits haven't gone back to their homes yet, and since the separatist movement still rages on in Kashmir, then is it the intention of the maker that every Indian citizen should hate/harm the Muslim and take it upon himself to purge this unruly element from the public sphere in order to truly render justice to the Pandits, as his patriotic duty? The appropriation of the chants/cries of Allahu Akbar for every dastardly act of humiliation and murder committed by the muslim, the constant berating of the the Pandit in the valley at the hand of every communal stereotype (the lazy-eye militant leader, the leery school teacher, the ungrateful neighbor), the juxtaposition of (Hindu) God chanting beaten down Pandit with the (Muslim) God chanting aggressor, are all definitely aimed at pointing the finger at a community. For a second, replace the Pandits in question with Sikhs, move the timeline to just after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, site the story in and around Delhi and replace the militant Muslims with marauding Hindus. By the same standards, the entire Hindu community - not just the tilak wearing, the sword toting, the scripture spewing Hindu - is as much to blame for the massacre and the subsequent displacement of the thousands of Sikhs and their families. And how about Bhagalpur, post Babri Masjid fall out, Godhra and other countless riots that doused the annals of Indian history in hues of crimson over all these years? Can the mindless and selfish work of some nefarious minds cast long shadows over entire religions and communities at large? The disclaimer upfront claims, the movie, though based on the testimonials of individuals, should not be treated as historically accurate. Even if the testimonials are accepted wholly without any question or contest, every incident, every atrocity, every murder, every bit of misfortune that has befallen the Pandits are the whole truth and nothing but truth, the conscious choice of the maker to not focus on the hands that pulled the levers behind, and instead narrow down the blame game to only cover the foot soldiers is downright irresponsible and dangerous. Again, the question, who is the true villain of the movie?

It was a conscious choice by the Pakistan think tank to introduce the communal element into picture. The plebiscite question of the 1950s, which called for a questioning the citizens of the state (J&K and PoK together) which side they'd rather be with, was always hanging as the Damocles sword on the necks of administrations on either side of the border, and the powers that be at ISI wanted no ambiguity in that answer should the question arise once again in the future, by ridding the valley completely of non-muslim identity. And how best to do it? Mark all the Pandits' houses, establishments and businesses and then pick them off one at a time using threats of murder, rape and persecution. The ploy worked and the Pandits fled. It was a political pogrom from the beginning, the communal color was merely the camouflage.

If the goal of "The Kashmir Files" is to point at the enemy behind the plight of the Pandit, it truly succeeded in its deed, except that, the enemy of its premise also resides within the same boundaries of the Indian state and is a fellow citizen. And then comes the dreaded question, What next?

Some Whispers - Thalaivi

A few decades ago, when the movie 'Gandhi' opened to great critical reception the world over, there were a few murmurs and grumblings from some quarters, particularly from the western world which has followed the freedom struggle from a distant and an objective viewpoint, that it was more a hagiography than a biography where Gandhi was depicted only in glowing glory, all his wrinkles suitably ironed out, and only good and noble thoughts oozed out of him at all times. As multiple accounts have subsequently proved that he was just as human as the rest with all the failings and fault lines, the fact that the forum that was the freedom struggle lent enough credibility and gravitas to anyone occupying it, elevating him/her from the status of mere mortals to iconic heroes. Consequently, there was no mention of his prickly relationship with his wife, his failure as a father, his bull headed imposition of his own brand of morality and spirituality on the movement often at the cost of practicality, and any and all his human trappings simply faded away in the background of a greater cause, which was much bigger than the man himself. Other than in the obvious 'overcoming the adversity' scenario, trying to make the person larger than his/her own personality becomes an exercise in pandering, one of obsequiousness. This is where a 'Mahanati' scores, where the personality shines through, and a 'Kathanayakudu' or a 'Thalaivi' fails, because the person becomes bigger than the proceedings around... which is a shame, because no other character in Indian politics has overcome as much personal indignation and institutional bias as JJ, with a personality that can be called cold, at best, and caustic, at worst. Even the title of the movie doesn't do justice to the person, she is not just 'Thalaivi' - the leader, she is 'Jaya' - the victor.

Much of the blame here rests at the doorstep of Vijayendra Prasad, the writer, who looked past a complex personality, saw only a string of achievements, and therefore delivers a script that merely plays just the greatest hits, burying deep down a personality that was always at odds with her surroundings, and yet somehow ended up dominating it and usurping it, eventually. By her own account, she loathed her stint on the silver screen, she was an outsider when she entered politics, often condescended to and overlooked, and her entire stay in politics was marked by constant turmoil - political and personal, she was a perennial loner, inside and outside, and the more she got hit she receded inwards building walls of power and intellectuality, and all this, being a woman in a man's world. Her case is a psychologist's dream and should have been a gold mine of character study for a filmmaker as well, ripe to chiseling away the rocky exterior and finding out the reasons for why she turned out the way she turned herself into. But somehow the story lingers on (and on and on...) on the one relationship that, frankly, was never as romantic as it was built up to be. MGR needed a fresh face for on screen romance and Jaya fit the bill and later MGR needed an heir in politics, and Jaya was the perfect understudy. Her (faithful) association with MGR happened much later in her film career, when he was almost one foot out the door of the movies, but somehow the movie spends an inordinate amount of time building it as a love at first sight.  If fact is compromised at the cost of drama, what's the point of making a biography in the first place where only the beginning and end are set in stone and the rest of the pieces could be moved around to suit the convenience. The tragedy of it all is this is a real character that had more drama in its real life that never had the need of a creative team come up with fictitious scenarios and questionable choices. JJ deserved better, her life deserved competent story-telling, her character deserved a closer introspection... than this by the numbers biopic.

Which brings to the main quibble about the concept of biopics in the Indian context. Granted Indians are an overly sensitive bunch, easily offended and quick to take objection to, particularly when it comes to their beliefs, faith and especially, their leaders. Try to humanize anyone and there is always one fringe group or the other instantly up in its arms crying foul at having its feelings hurt. In such a climate, the question arises, can there ever be an honest, unvarnished, uncompromising look at the life of a public figure without the fear of being retaliated - physically or financially, in other words, why even bother? For the next filmmaker who wants to make a biopic of a personality who has lived his/her life pretty much in the front pages of newspapers and magazines, on whom history hasn't had the luxury (and distance) of time yet to be objective about the life, the one question that seals the fate of the movie before it even is committed to the paper is, which one is bigger, the person or the personality. If the maker's answer is the former, as The Queen's song goes 'Another one bites the dust...', but if it weighs in favor of the latter however, that's definitely the right foot forward.

What a wasted opportunity!