LITMUS TEST FOR INDIA'S INTELLECTUALS

FOR LONG, INDIAN INTELLECTUALS HAVE BEEN DENYING ATROCITIES INFLICTED ON KASHMIRI HINDUS. HYPOCRITICALLY, THEY CALL FOR DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN OTHER CASES. THE RECENT CONTROVERSY ON 'THE KASHMIR FILES' FEATURED IN IFFI-2022 HAS ONCE AGAIN EXPOSED THEIR DOUBLE STANDARDS

- AGRAH PANDIT

Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lipid adhered to this very holier-than-thou template when he criticized Vivek Agnihotri's magnum opus The Kashmir Files as propagandist and vulgar (he had earlier slammed the playing of India's national anthem at IFFI). But this is not new; countless Indian intellectuals have already done it. Mani Shankar Aiyar, for instance, simply denied the angle of terrorism by asserting, "The Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley in droves in 1990 because they were corralled and herded out like cattle by the cowboy-Governor of the day [Jagmohan]."

Better still, if you are able to somehow show Muslims as victims and Hindus as villains. Barkha Dutt, for instance, slighted KP's exodus by attributing it to a class struggle between the privileged elites (i.e. Pandits) and miserable Muslims. Similarly, when KPs were being killed in tons, Khan Market intellectuals were busy sympathising with their perpetrators like Yasin Mailk, the poster boy of Kashmir genocide. It was not uncommon for media houses to interview Yasin sahib on his favourite books and movies. In fact, Yasin sahib was invited as Youth Icon at India Today Conclave 2008.