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Vivek Agnihotri’s film, The Kashmir Files, released in theatres in March but even after eight months, the controversy around it doesn’t seem to stop. The latest episode of bipartisan debate (or rather mud-slinging) was triggered by the Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s comments strongly disapproving of the film at the International Film Festival of India in Goa, where he was serving as the head jury.
These words rattled the right wing so much, many of them tweeted demanding resignation of Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, who was present at the IFFI event and who was also held responsible for the selection of Lapid as the jury chief.
“So Anurag Thakur was given an easier portfolio & he still messed up?” one Twitter user wrote.
Lapid’s comments seem to have embarrassed the Israeli ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, who wrote an open letter to the filmmaker in the form of tweets. Lapid, who himself is a Jew, is critical of the Israeli State in its handling of the Palestine issue and his movies too are political in nature. The ambassador alluded to this fact saying,
Gilon also expressed fear regarding the repercussions he and his staff in India may face in light of the controversy as his Twitter inbox was already flooded with messages.
Gilon’s fearful tweet suggests that the jabs and barbs on the two opposing sides are not just a battle of ideas but they have ugly undertones.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi tweeted,
One of the lead actors in The Kashmir Files, Anupam Kher, didn’t stop at responding to Lapid’s statement but went on to use words like "traitor" and "toolkit gang."
The veteran actor also spoke of the film and the killings of Kashmir Pandits as one and the same thing, when that needn't have to be the case. The criticism of the film doesn’t have to mean one denies that Kashmiri Pandits were killed and that their sufferings deserve to be discussed.
This rhetorical manoeuvre was employed by movie’s director Vivek Agnihotri too. His video statement on Twitter was a litany of loaded terms like "terrorist organisations", "urban naxals", people wanting to break up ("tukde tukde") India and so on.
Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT department head Amit Malviya’s tweet was on similar lines as Agnihotri. “For the longest time, people even denied the Holocaust and called Schindler’s List a propaganda, just like some are doing to Kashmir Files. Truth eventually triumphs, no matter what,” he wrote.
But many Twitter users pointed out that Agnihotri is no Steven Spielberg and The Kashmir Files is no Schindler’s List.
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut reminded people of the active government support for the film and compared it to the security situation in Kashmir. He told news agency ANI,
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