NEW DELHI (AP) ā Israelās envoy to India on Tuesday denounced a filmmaker from his country after he called a blockbuster Bollywood film on disputed Kashmir a āpropagandaā and āvulgar movieā at a film festival, stoking a debate about recent history that fuels the ongoing conflict.
Naor Gilon, Israelās ambassador to India, said he was āextremely hurtā by comments made by filmmaker Nadav Lapid in which he said the movie āThe Kashmir Filesā was unworthy of being screened at the highly acclaimed International Film Festival of India. The event, organized by the Indian government in western Goa state, ended Monday.
āThe Kashmir Filesā was released in March to a roaring success and is largely set in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when attacks and threats by militants led to the migration of most Kashmiri Hindus from the Muslim-majority disputed region. Many film critics and Kashmiri Muslims have called the film hateful propaganda, while its fans and proponents, including Indiaās many federal government ministers, see it as essential viewing of the plight of Kashmiri Hindus, locally called Pandits.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the territory in full. In 1989, tens of thousands of mostly Kashmiri Muslims rose up against Indian rule, leading to a protracted armed conflict in the region.
On Tuesday, Gilon tweeted at Lapid, saying: āYOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.ā
āIām no film expert but I do know that itās insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of the involved are still around and still paying a price,ā Gilon tweeted. He also accused Lapid of inflicting damage on the growing relationship between India and Israel.
The festival jury has distanced itself from Lapidās remarks and called them his āpersonal opinion.ā An internationally acclaimed director, Lapidās movies āSynonymsā and āAhadās Kneeā have won awards at major festivals.
At the time of its release, āThe Kashmir Filesā was endorsed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and promoted by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party by offering it tax breaks in some states governed by it.
The film, however, set off heated debates. Its supporters praised it for speaking the truth about Kashmiri Hindus, while critics said the film was aimed to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments at a time when calls for violence against Indiaās minority Muslims have increased.
Nonetheless, the film was a blockbuster. Made on a budget of $2 million, it has earned more than $43 million so far, making it one of Indiaās highest-grossing films this year.
The filmmakers of āThe Kashmir Filesā have repeatedly said it exposes what they call the āgenocideā inflicted on the regionās Hindus and likened it to Hollywoodās ā³Schindlerās Listā³ that tells the story of the Holocaust. But many critics, including some of Bollywoodās top directors, have called it divisive, full of factual inaccuracies and provocative.
Hindus lived mostly peacefully alongside Muslims for centuries across the Himalayan region of Kashmir. In the late 1980s, when Kashmir turned into a battleground, attacks and threats by militants led to the departure of most Kashmiri Hindus, who identified with Indiaās rule, Many believed that the rebellion was also aimed at wiping them out. It reduced the Hindus from an estimated 200,000 to a tiny minority of about 5,000 in the Kashmir Valley.
Most of the regionās Muslims, long resentful of Indian rule, deny that Hindus were systematically targeted, and say India helped them to move out in order to cast Kashmirās freedom struggle as Islamic extremism.
According to official data, over 200 Kashmiri Hindus were killed in the last three decades of the regionās conflict. Some Hindu groups put the number much higher.
Tensions in Kashmir returned in when Indiaās Hindu nationalist government stripped the region's semi-autonomy, split it into two federal territories administered by New Delhi and imposed a clampdown on free speech accompanied by widespread arrests. Kashmir has since witnessed a spate of targeted killings, Police blame anti-India rebels for the killings.
On Tuesday, āThe Kashmir Filesā actor Anupam Kher, who plays a protagonist, called the criticism of the film āpreplanned.ā
āIf the Holocaust is right, then the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is also right,ā Kher said in a video posted on Twitter.
āThe Kashmir Filesā is directed by Vivek Agnihotri, whose previous film āThe Tashkent Filesā alleged a conspiracy in the death of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The film was heavily criticized for presenting unproven conspiracy theories as facts.
Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press
