Lights, Camera, Propaganda: The Case of Kashmir
Kashmir has been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan since the partition of subcontinent. Both nations have plunged into rivalry over a disputed land that has become an example of oppression and injustice. With ticking clock, the Kashmir conflict became worse, and so the tactics of India. In an era of internet, India has used mis-and-dis information to launch Information war against Pakistan and has used Bollywood as a tool to shape and build narratives over Kashmir.
Bollywood has a wide range of audience and covers different genres. It has a massive viewership crossing billions across globe and releases about 1000 movies each year. With a mammoth audience, India has used Bollywood to air movies on Kashmir like Uri: The surgical strike, Kashmir files and Article 370 to mold this conflict with tampered incidents, fueling hate and nationalistic ideologies. Since movies are widely consumed for recreational purposes, it becomes an easy way to instill agendas and narratives through screen.
Breakdown of movies on occupied Kashmir reveals that these movies are merely political agenda of Indian Authorities.
CASE STUDY OF BOLLYWOOD MOVIES
1- The Kashmir Files:
The Kashmir files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri was released on March 11, 2002. The story revolves around the bleeding image of occupied Kashmir but with a twist. The planted twist is that the innocent Kashmiri people are shown as religious extremist and violent, loaded with guns and weapons of destruction, and the Pandits are the victims of violence. The movie opens with a scene of 3 elderly people beating a Hindu child for chanting a slogan of an Indian cricketer and forcing him to say Pakistan zindabad. The next scene is just as violent as Indian authorities, a mother shot dead infront of her daughter. The streets of Kashmir are shown flooded with Mujahideen, and even kids are armed. Allegedly, they are shown killing Pandits and Indian authorities but the whole movie is just a clownery.
The people of occupied Kashmir have been living in a torture cell. The Kashmiri dilemma is re-packaged as Pandit issue and the suffering of Kashmiri people are pasted on Pandits as nothing have happened to oppressed Kashmiri. With this movie, a narrative is created that Kashmiris are violent and occupied Kashmir is a part of India. The character Krishna in the movie is depicted as the youth of India and they are constantly injected with hate against Pakistan. The repetition of word “genocide” was used to frame Muslims a larger threat to Hindu community as a whole. Unsurprisingly, Modi approved the movie, quoting that everything shown in the movie is the “Truth of Kashmir” but it was more of a hidden political agenda.
This movie faced a backlash in the form of protest from Pandit community in India and Kashmir, stating that the events shown in the movie are tempered. Former Air Chief Marshal, Kapil Kak, also a Kashmiri Pandit spoke;
“The Kashmir files is an attempt to spin the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. What the film seeks to do is to vilify, downplay, and delegitimize the Kashmiri Muslims and their own pain and suffering for 32 years. There is deafening silence on that. The film shows the entire Kashmiri Muslim community as terrorists. They stand brutalized and dehumanized.”
Dr. Nitasha Kaul, an academic and a Kashmiri Pandit said that;
“The Kashmir Files is communal propaganda by an Indian filmmaker that trades upon this suffering”
And that not all, even the international community saw between the lines as Nadav Lapid, an Israeli filmmaker in a film fest said;
“It felt like a propaganda, vulgar movie”
2- Article 370:
This movie revolves around the factors and processes that lead to the illegal revocation of Article 370 and 35A from Kashmir. Directed by Aditya Suhas Jambhale, this movie primed all cinemas and turned over a huge revenue. The movie breaks open in Kashmir, showcasing Burhan Wani as a terrorist leader and his martyrdom with a military backed operation. The Kashmiri leadership is allegedly shown organizing rallies, gathering stone pelters and paying them with the funding coming from Pakistan. If any Indian national is asked about the role of Pakistan in Kashmir, they would argue that Pakistan is causing all the troubles in occupied Kashmir and this narrative is a reflection from what is shown in the movies. India uses cinema to divert people from the reality. This movie highlighted all the chaos in the government, clashes of opinion and humiliating Pakistan. It has gained mass approval from public as they were unaware of the constitutional proceedings. This movie altered everything up and prepared a cooked meal for people to consume. The legality of revocation of this article is still challenged and Indian authorities are facing grave consequences of the step, but India has fed this in the mind of people that it was all constitutional.
The revocation was done on the basis of bringing development to the region, but opposite has been done. The region has witnessed a surge in Indian soldier footfall, declining humanitarian conditions, increasing poverty in the region and food insecurity, yet Indian authorities claim that normalcy has prevailed in the region. The movie ended with falsified images of “Happy times” in Kashmir, but the director seems to have forgotten of the brutal images of families suffering, people being deprived of their rights and women being widowed and raped. Overall, this movie brought one sided image of a complex geo-political issue and strategically justified all the wrong doings of Delhi and instilled it in the minds of people that Kashmir is a part of India, and Pakistan is responsible for the crisis in occupied Kashmir. Indian authorities, again made an attempt to snatch the rights of Kashmiri people by tampering the reality and airing falsified narratives.
3- Uri: The Surgical Strike:
Aditya Dhar directed another movie, Uri the surgical strike that was aired on January 11, 2019. This movie unveils the planning of a falsified surgical strike that allegedly India did on Pakistan. Relying on usual customaries, Bollywood displays a series of Terrorists attack and allegedly linked them all to Pakistan as a sponsor of violence. The India media portray every terrorist activity within India’s boundary with a lens of planning from Pakistan. This has negatively impacted the image of Pakistan in common masses, and being long foes, this breeds more sense of hatred towards Pakistan. Coming to the claims of Surgical strike, Intrusion was there but claiming destruction of alleged terrorist launch pads and Killing 350 terrorist, that too with a payload is a joke. Indian authorities again using cinema, blended in tampered narrative of a surgical strike with planted storyline and verve battle scenes. The lie was to be covered somehow, and for mass acceptance from Indian population, Indian authorities resorted to cinema.
EFFECTS OF CINEMA
Influence on Community Sentiment:
Films are a powerful tool of inducing emotions. They can evoke both negative and positive emotions. Movies are optimum tool of narrative transportation as viewers are immersed in storyline and happenings of a movie, and subconsciously they become bait to the belief being fed. The most vulnerable in this regard is the youth, as their actions are induced by emotions rather than rationality. Young minds are more prone to accepting new ideas and portraying them, being an effective host. Conditioning effects greatly on perception and perception dominates views of a person, making cinema highly effective and dangerous as well. Movies based upon national victories in battlefield are seen to raise patriotism, but blended with imagined scenarios and planted agendas, they can robust hatred for other country. This can be observed clearly upon going through reviews of people after consuming cinema. Almost everyone experienced high emotions of patriotism but none questioned the facts or story being displayed.
Future implications on conflict:
Repeated exposure to altered cinema can permanently instill false narratives especially in youth. They can internalize the idea they are consuming and sprout likewise. In the longer term, this can impact how the conflict is perceived. Bollywood’s constant portrayal of Pakistan as evil and associating Muslims with terrorists has stigmatized Muslim community. Majority of Bollywood movies depict Muslims in controversial roles, attired and outlooked similarly in all movies. This has negatively impacted the perception of Pakistan and Kashmir, and are perceived as how they are shown in movies. In the longer term, continued exposure may spark hatred, that is being witnessed too, and evolve a generation with instilled hatred.
Supporting political agenda:
Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is always seen promoting Anti-Muslim agendas. More than that, politics of Modi is based upon exacerbating the sense of hatred between Hindus and Muslims, especially by triggering anti-Muslims and anti-Pakistan notions. Modi has used Kashmir and Pakistan as a tool to gain popularity among Indian nationals and utilized this popularity for electoral gains. Movie, Uri the surgical strike was launched before elections in 2019 and Modi supported it. As a result of large spread audience, covered agenda and a touch of patriotism, Indian population applauded Modi and showed its support in upcoming elections. As a result on May 23, 2019, Narendra Modi leading Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) won a landslide victory. Again, prior to elections in 2024, BJP referred to use cinema as a tool for elections and created another controversial movie, Article 370. This movie highlighted the one-sided events that led to illegal revocation of article 370 and 35-A from Kashmir. Modi is shown as a national hero and displayed angelic to win maximum sympathy and it worked magic. On June 9, 2024 Modi again sworn in for 3rd consecutive term, as the Prime Minister of India. The use of cinema to inject narratives in people specially youth is concerning. Though, it was used to establish grounds for an incremental win, but long-term effects that were not catered for, can be detrimental.
Budget and Revenue:
Surprisingly, the budget for creating an anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan movie is very high. It is mainly due to the reason that this type of content attracts wider viewership and increased revenue. Uri: The Surgical Strike had a budget of over 1.5 million dollars and total box office revenue reaching to 4 Crore dollars. The revenue rate of 26.6% speaks of the admiration for nationalistic content and the opportunity it posses. This movie was not only displayed in India but viewed across the globe, making the Indian narrative of conflict being fed to international community as well. The revenue made is again utilized to fuel the conflict as it is used to create more movies, advertise existing media and even support standing Indian army in occupied Kashmir. The producer of Uri, Aditya Dhar witnessing the potential, created another movie, Article 370 highlighting hoax and one-sided incidents leading to abrogation of article 370 and 35-A in Kashmir. The Budget of this movie was not disclosed but the gross worldwide box-office was $13,222,021. Similarly, the budget for Kashmir files was almost 2.3 million dollars and $24,821,898 in revenue.
This shows how much Indian authorities are eager to invest in Cinema, using it as a war tool and manipulating minds by inserting false narratives. Case study of different movies speaks for the profits being made.
|
Movies |
Release year |
Budget |
Gross Worldwide |
1 |
1992 |
261,680$ |
564,991$ |
|
2 |
2001 |
2,200,494$ |
||
3 |
2014 |
4,400,976$ |
1,404,307$ |
|
4 |
2018 |
3,568,359$ |
1,812,763$ |
|
5 |
2019 |
5,352,745$ |
39,346,577$ |
|
6 |
2020 |
3,568,359$ |
1,109,387$ |
|
7 |
2022 |
2,378,980$ |
24,821,898$ |
|
8 |
2023 |
(Not-disclosed) |
1,740,275$ |
|
9 |
2024 |
(Not-disclosed) |
13,222,021$ |
Impact on International Community:
Media, cinema and digital content has no barriers. It travels across nations and leave lasting impact on viewers. Bollywood has a worldwide presence and viewership, and keeping in context the conflict of Kashmir, it can be crucial as cinema reaching international audience is tampered and stuffed with one-sided picture of the story. This creates an impact on international community as they tend to adopt what is shown in the movie. Moreover, lack of knowledge of conflict added with consumption of agenda-filled content can alter the way how this conflict is perceived.
Conclusion:
Cinema is a healthy recreational activity but it should be kept to engage audience positively. Using cinema to air distorted facts and events across populations is not only heinous but should be considered a violation of basic right of truthful information. The case gets serious specially when the region is clinched firmly in world’s oldest unresolved conflict and altered narratives are built using cinema. This adds to the pain of already marginalized people by exacerbating the violation in basic rights. The people of occupied Kashmir are none less than any other population across globe. They demand their rights, security and above all, the right of self-determination. Tempered cinema further creates complexities in the way of conflict resolution. It is about time we consume the reality and stand against the altered cinema to ensure people of occupied Kashmir get served their rightful justice.
The author of this report, Jawad Hassan, is a researcher at YFK.
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- Kashmir’s Cry for Justice on Human Rights Day - December 23, 2024