Congress is in the doldrums. On Wednesday, the G23 group of dissidents held a meeting at senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s residence in Delhi. While the rebellion was brewing in Delhi, a thousand kilometers away in Raipur, a different kind of political messaging was being done by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
Reportedly, after BJP leaders across the country started suggesting that Congress was playing down the pain of Kashmiri Pandits shown in the movie, “The Kashmir Files” by actively avoiding it – Baghel stood up, demanded pan India tax-free status for the movie, and even went to watch it with his colleagues.
After seven BJP state governments viz. Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttarakhand declared the film ‘The Kashmir Files’ tax-free in their states, Baghel urged PM Modi to declare the film tax-free on the national level. Yes, you heard that righr, CM Baghel requested the PM to remove the central GST on this film and make it a tax-free film pan-India.
Make the movie tax free by waving the CGST: Bhupesh Baghel
In a tweet in Hindi, Baghel said, “BJP MLAs have demanded to exempt ‘The Kashmir Files’ movie from (entertainment) tax in the state. I request the Hon’ble Prime Minister to announce to waive off central GST on this film. (Then) the movie will be tax-free across the country,”
भाजपा के विधायकगणों ने मांग की है कि 'कश्मीर फ़ाइल्स' को टैक्स फ़्री कर दिया जाए।
मैं माननीय प्रधानमंत्री से अनुरोध करता हूं कि वे इस फ़िल्म से केंद्रीय जीएसटी हटाने की घोषणा करें। पूरे देश में फ़िल्म टैक्स फ़्री हो जाएगी। @PMOIndia
— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) March 16, 2022
Earlier, Baghel also invited his political colleagues from the party and opposition to watch the movie in the theater as well.
Informing his decision, Baghel wrote, “Today all the esteemed members of the Assembly (including our party and the opposition) have been invited to watch the film ‘Kashmir Files’ together. Today at 8 pm, all of us MLAs/invited citizens will watch the film together at a cinema hall in the capital.”
आज विधानसभा के सभी सम्मानित सदस्यों (पक्ष-विपक्ष सहित) को एक साथ 'कश्मीर फ़ाइल्स' फिल्म देखने के लिए आमंत्रित किया है।
आज रात 8 बजे राजधानी के एक सिनेमा हॉल में हम सभी विधायक/आमंत्रित नागरिक एक साथ फिल्म देखेंगे।
— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) March 16, 2022
Baghel is a Sanghi, an RSS member — Muslim Congress supporters
However, Baghel’s promotion of the movie certainly didn’t go down well with a certain section of Muslim supporters of the party. A blue tick journalist named Wasim Akram Tyagi labelled Baghel a Sanghi and claimed that this was the reason Muslims were distancing themselves from Congress.
https://twitter.com/WasimAkramTyagi/status/1504059474742431744
Meanwhile, another went on to add, “When people say, there are so many RSS people in Congress, then difficult to believe but its seems to be true (sic.)”
When people say, there are so many RSS people in Congress, then difficult to believe but its seems to be true. https://t.co/GYYeNfobMk
— 🅼🆄🅹 🆆🅾🆁🅳🆂 (@mujwords) March 16, 2022
Under pressure, Baghel starts the monkey balancing
Baghel who had been supportive of the movie up until this point then came up with a review of the movie, along the same lines of the tweets made by Kerala Congress, a few days earlier. It was clear that Baghel had cowered under pressure and was trying to monkey balance the issue by not hyping up the movie.
After watching the movie, Baghel told reporters that the film was half-cooked and there was just an attempt to show violence. He said, “Kashmir Files’ also had a political message suggesting that VP Singh was the prime minister and the BJP-supported government didn’t send the army despite President’s rule in the state,”
अभी "कश्मीर फाइल्स" देखकर लौटा हूँ।
फिल्म में दिखाया गया है कि भाजपा के सहयोग से चल रही सरकार ने कश्मीरी पंडितों को रोकने का प्रयास नहीं किया था, बल्कि उन्हें जाने को कहा।
वहां सेना नहीं भेजी गयी। पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री स्व. राजीव गांधी ने जब लोकसभा का घेराव किया, तब सेना भेजी गयी। pic.twitter.com/YKG25NpoAr
— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) March 16, 2022
Congress has been shifting the blame of genocide on BJP and Jagmohan theory
Led by the Gandhi family, the Indian National Congress – largely an Islamist party has been showing its outrage against the movie for portraying the unblemished truth. As reported previously by TFI, a deleted tweet by the Kerala unit of the Congress party argued that between 1990 and 2007, 15,000 Kashmiri Muslims were killed as against 399 Pandits. However, no statistical data about exodus of Kashmiri Pandits was mentioned in the tweet.
Later, in the same thread, Congress also sought to shift the blame for the exodus to the BJP. It tweeted that “the migration suited the agenda of the BJP for the Hindu-Muslim division while carrying out the Ram Mandir issue in Ayodhya”. There was also an attempt to resort to the Jagmohan theory. Another tweet by the Kerala Congress stated, “Pandits left the valley en masse under the direction of Governor Jagmohan who was an RSS man. The migration started under the BJP-supported VP Singh government.” As for Baghel, he merely picked up the same thread, passed along by the top Congress brass and regurgitated it in full in front of the reporters.
We stand by every single fact in yesterday's tweet thread about the #KashmiriPandits issue. However, we've removed a part of the thread, seeing BJP hate factory taking it out of context and using it for their communal propaganda.
We'll continue to speak out the truth. (1/3)
— Congress Kerala (@INCKerala) March 14, 2022
The Kashmir Files – a hard-hitting movie
The Kashmir Files is based on the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits and is inspired by true events that transpired in the early 90s. It stars Anupam Kher and Mithun Chakraborty in the lead roles.
The terror situation in the valley along with dreadful rallies and killings has been displayed honestly. Anupam Kher, who is a Kashmiri Pandit, makes everyone teary-eyed when he describes ‘their’ Kashmir.
Read More: The Kashmir Files is the goriest, yet the most truthful account of the Kashmiri Hindu massacre
Mithun Chakraborty, through his outstanding performance, shuts up an Islamist sympathiser when he says, “Kashmiri Pandits also went through so much, but they never picked up a gun. Why?” The film actually goes on to show what kind of genocidal slogans were raised during the slaughter and exodus of Kashmir Pandits from the valley. The movie has garnered rave reviews for being hard-hitting and not trying to sugarcoat the reality, as the previous movies made on the topic attempted to do so.
Earlier, a movie on the same topic tried to humanize the terrorists and became a love story midway — inviting the fury of Kashmiri Pandits who were livid at such a lame attempt to portray the agony of Pandits.
Congress should give up its act of trying to appease the Muslim supporters by playing down ‘The Kashmir Files’. Standing up for the victims of a genocide will only raise the goodwill of the party which is otherwise struggling to resonate with the voters, if the recent results of the five assembly state elections are any indication.
Wikipedia is showering hate on this movie.
How predictable!
The same wikipedia trolls showered hate on Vivek Agnihotri’s previous films.
https://ekvastra.in/category/wikipedia/
See the edits of wikipedia trolls Aruneek Biswas Trangabellam, Abhimanyu Lele Vanamonde93, Fowler, Reddyuday Kautilya3 and Tayi Arajakate.
This has been going on for years! Back then it was Winged Blades of Godric and Walrus Ji who were attacking Vivek Agnihotri and his films, now they changed user account (Walrus Ji was blocked on wikipedia) and TrangaBellam (a sockpuppet) is continuing the same hate agenda on wikipedia.
Just for comparison, we all know about the riots and the killings of the Hindus (and also the Muslims) during the partition, yet so many Hindus decided not to desert their ancestors’ houses and stayed put in Pakistan and many many more Muslims decided to stay in India for the same reason. So it is very hard to give up your ancestors’ house and go 500 miles away to live in a cottage as a refugee. The millions of Kashmiri Pandits had to do just. This shows the magnitude of the Kashmiri Pandits’ genocide scale versus the killings during the partition.