Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri continues to stay in the headlines ever since his blockbuster The Kashmir Files soared at the box office. The filmmaker has maintained that he directed the film in order to bring the issues of Kashmiri Pandits to the spotlight. In a recent interview with a foreign publication, the filmmaker compared making the movie with that of 1993 Steven Spielberg’s directorial, Schindler’s List.
In the interview, Agnihotri continued to deny the claims that the film had the government of India’s support and that the film has encouraged people to vilify Muslims. “It was impossible to make a film about the Kashmiri Hindu genocide,” he told New Yorker. “The reason was terrorism; everybody was scared. But then we decided to do it. People came to my office and hit my manager. I was heckled. So now the government of India has given me security. And this is exactly why people do not make movies on the Kashmiri Hindu genocide, because it is assumed that, if Hindus are in the majority in India, then they’re powerful everywhere, but this is wrong. When Schindler’s List was made, the whole world appreciated it and people said, ‘Yes, you brought the truth out.’ But imagine making Schindler’s List when the Nazis were ruling. Imagine making it when Hitler was ruling. Now terrorism is ruling.”
Furthermore, when asked whether he was comparing the current plight of India with Schindler’s List because terrorists rule in India, he said, “Oh, of course. I don’t think there is any human being who’s going to appreciate the terrorist activities. Our film is very clearly about what happens when terrorism seeps in and when humanity is absent. And, therefore, the impact of the movie as desired by me as a filmmaker is exactly what is happening. People are crying, they’re hugging each other, they’re saying, “We are sorry.” And the whole entire India is coming together. And that’s why there is so much euphoria.”
He maintained that The Kashmir Files is a soft emotional film. “It’s an emotional film. It’s got a more feature-film format rather than a harsh statement,” he said.
The Kashmir Files starred Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Pallavi Joshi, and Mithun Chakraborty.
