Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri on Thursday said that a section of foreign media was attempting to run an “international political campaign” against his film “The Kashmir Files” that resulted in the Foreign Correspondents Club and the Press Club of India (PCI) cancelling his press conference recently.
In another press conference that took place at a five-star hotel in New Delhi on Thursday, Agnihotri claimed that soon after his film, based on the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley in the 1990s, became a historical success, foreign media publications realised that it was “denting their narrative”.
“Every major player, who maligns India’s image internationally without checking the truth, started calling me and their line of the question was only Hindu-Muslim. Nobody, not even one bothered to ask me about all those victims who I interviewed for this movie. Not even one tried to ask me about the facts I’ve shown in the movie and whether they are right or wrong,” Agnihotri, who was joined by his wife, acclaimed actress Pallavi Joshi at the conference, said.
The aim behind Thursday’s press conference was to “debunk” allegations levelled against “The Kashmir Files,” said Agnihotri. Though the film, made on a budget of Rs 15 crore, has earned over Rs 350 crores at the box office and is still running in theatres after two months, a section of critics and politicians have dubbed it “problematic” and called it out for propagating “anti-Muslim sentiments”.
Refuting the allegations, Agnihotri said, “Most of our crew was Muslim. In Kashmir, 100 percent of our crew was Muslim. One of the most important scenes in the film where the protagonist of the film interacts with a boy in Shikara, I had requested a Kashmiri Muslim activist from Kashmir Valley to write that scene. I said that you must have representation. We made sure that scene was enacted by a Kashmiri Muslim activist boy in Kashmir. It’s embarrassing that I have to come and say all these things but I want to expose these people who use Islamophobia as a political weapon against us.”
He continued, “There is an international political campaign against the film. They blame us for Islamophobia. I categorically put on record that Islamophobia is being used as a political weapon against my film under an international political conspiracy. The film is actually anti-terrorism. The film does not use even once the word ‘Muslim’. The film does not use the word Pakistan or Pakistani. It’s an anti-terrorism film.”
Agnihotri also addressed the allegations that “The Kashmir Files” was supported by the central government after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address at the BJP Parliamentary Party meet, spoke about the movie and how it rattled the “entire ecosystem” which claimed to be the torchbearer of freedom of expression.
“The film became a historical success in the first four days. By Tuesday, it was indisputable that this film is going to create history. Until then not even one person said it’s government-supported. But when the prime minister spoke about it in a different context, suddenly it became a government-funded film,” Agnihotri said.
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