Film-makers must be careful in their approach
There may well be a grain of truth in Bollywood film-maker Vishal Bhardwaj's observation that the Hindi film industry has been “unfair to Kashmiris” in that the film industry has rarely gone beyond the natural beauty of Kashmir valley and addressed issues that concern the local population there. But that does not justify the hooliganism which a group of college students recently indulged in during the film-maker's shooting of Haider. The reason why they did that indicates the sort of anti-India actions that the authorities there have encouraged through their failure to clamp down harshly on such elements. The students forcibly halted the shooting inside the Kashmir University campus at Hazratbal after they objected to the hoisting of the National Flag atop a makeshift bunker.
Just why should Indians have any objection to the raising of the Tricolour on Indian soil, beats reason — unless the case is that those who threw a tantrum and forced the film unit to pack up, belonged to groups that are waging a battle against Jammu and Kashmir being part of India. We know who these groups are and where they are getting financial and organisational support from. The tragedy is that such elements get away lightly; while the police detained a few of the protesting students, it released them after the university authorities intervened. When seen in the context of this incident, Mr Bhardwaj's observations are clearly an attempt to appease, in the hope that his film will be seen and appreciated widely in the State once it is released. But, while his sentiment about projecting the ‘reality’ may be noble from a film-maker’s point of view, he must realise that it makes no sense to pander to extremists. He can make the most honest film on the problems the people face in the valley, but if it contains favourable references to India, it will be panned by the extremists there. Mr Bhardwaj has promised that his film will be “objective”, but objectivity is not what the separatists and their hordes of supporters, who have become experts at disrupting normal life in the valley at the drop of a hat, want. They want condemnation of India and of the fact that Kashmir is an inalienable part of the Union.
As for Mr Bhardwaj's commitment to portray the “sufferings” of the people of the valley through the film, Haider, is the film-maker referring to the daily challenges the citizens there face on account of the frequent calls by the separatists for strikes and the resulting violence, or does he believe — like the separatists — that the real cause of suffering lies with a ‘cruel' New Delhi which is out to stifle the ‘voice of the people' of the valleyIJ As one of the smartest and most capable film-makers in Hindi films, Mr Bhardwaj must not fall in the trap of appeasing people who are bent upon believing that Kashmir does not belong to India, and that any form of protest — including violence — to register their point, is fine so long as it bleeds the country.