Soumya tells us why watching Kashmir Files is a must for all, a review for Different Truths. 

I saw Kashmir Files quite some time back. It is alarming. I think everyone should see it. The most important line was learning from the Jews and not letting people forget the holocaust. To ensure we do not repeat it. We have conveniently forgotten the horrors of partition and the genocide in Bangladesh.

We see a deluge of films on the Jewish holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, the native Americans, Australian aborigines, Congo etc. Even on the Gujrat riots, nothing that’s not painted over about partition or Bangladesh. Only one art-house film on the 1984 pogroms of Sikhs and, for the first time, anything on the genocide of pundits in Kashmir.

Its imagery and impact are powerful. It’s far from rhetoric and propaganda as the intelligentsia has condemned it without seeing it. It is restrained. It lets you hear both the narratives. It has carefully avoided sensationalism, especially about the rapes.

Punishing the authorities and politicians who collude with terrorists is a must. But the political and government officials responsible for the Sikh massacre are still scot-free, so it may be too much to hope for.

The concluding imagery without dialogue or music will continue to haunt me and all viewers.

Picture design by Anumita Roy, Different Truths

Soumya Mukherjee

Soumya Mukherjee is an alumnus of St Stephens College and Delhi School of Economics. He earns his daily bread by working for a PSU Insurance company, and lectures for peanuts. His other passions, family, friends, films, travel, food, trekking, wildlife, music, theater, and occasionally, writing. He has been published in many national newspapers of repute. He has published his first novel, Memories, a novella, hopefully, the first of his many books. He blogs as well.

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