I couldn’t cry. There were times during the film when chills ran down my spine. Oftentimes I almost cried and got teary-eyed. But I couldn’t cry. Throughout the film, I had a deep abyssal pit in my gut. Maybe it was because somewhere within, my smoldering rage and the feeling one gets from witnessing the sheer unfairness of life had burnt all my tears.
It wasn’t a surprise to me. The scenes I saw, I had already read and heard about more than once. Great journalists and activists like Pushpendra Kulshreshtha, J. Sai Deepak, Retired Major Gaurav Aarya, and many many more have already spoken at length about the genocide and the resulting exodus of 1990. All are available on public domains. But their voices were always kept away from the mainstream. All we could hear were the empty and shoddy narratives that were propagated to appease certain people. It was all truly tragic.
“This is the only democracy where everyone but the majority is appeased and the majority is asking for equal rights”
Pushpedra Kulshreshta
The reason why each and every one of us should watch this movie is to show the people who actually faced this gruesome reality that we are with them in their struggle for justice. To show them that the India they and their ancestors thought of as their motherland is there to stand by them and give them that loving warmth they have been missing all this while. It’s that gentle and caring but firm hand on their shoulders to let them know that we, although a bit later than we should have, have acknowledged their suffering and pain. That we have seen and tried to understand what they’ve been through all this time.
It is a stand we must take in solidarity.
We as Indians and especially as Hindus, or should I say, Sanatanis, have always taught and learned the values passed down to us by our ancestors. To embrace diversity. To embrace freedom. To embrace the differences that we have with each other. And we always do it to the best of our abilities.
But our civilization also teaches us to protect ourselves when we see an enemy coming at us for our lives to vanquish our very way of existence. Do not hate anyone. But do not have a toxic relationship in which you let your very being be at risk for the sake of some ideal paradise.
In a nutshell, the truth cannot stay hidden and facts cannot be denied. A famous quote from one of my favorite thinkers of modern times, Jordan Peterson;
“You cannot twist the fabric of reality. And even if you do, it will unravel itself in ways one can’t even imagine. And when it does, it has terrible consequences”.
Jordan Peterson
What is happening today is exactly the unraveling of reality which was twisted by the very people our predecessors trusted to lead us to a better future. And this is just the beginning. Following suit of The Kashmir Files, many more such films will come up to cure us of our hallucinated history disorder.
To go to the theater and watch this movie is also us doing our bit to encourage other such films that may come in the future to help us out of our selective amnesia and hallucinated history disorder.
So with every fiber of my being, I recommend the movie “The Kashmir Files” to each and every person from my generation.
We are the youth of this country. It is us who will be the future of this nation. But how do we shape our futures when our past is all a hallucination concocted by people trying to hide their dust under the carpet and our present so highly influenced by the ways of the very people who drove us into this state!?
I won’t say that we should discard the modern way we’ve come to love so much. But all I wish is that we realize who we as a people are and what we represent and are a part of.
As the up and coming people of this country, we owe it to the many freedom fighters who were our forefathers that we stand up today and take the nation’s well-being into our own hands.
Governments can only do so much if the people it is for are asleep and in a state of hallucinated dreams and blurred memories of our past. We should make it our mission, like Sir Agnihotri and his team did, to contribute to the nation’s healing process and empower it with our own sweat and tears.
Not everyone can go into the armed forces to serve at the most glorious and most patriotic institution of the country. But not everything that needs to be done lies at the border. We as civilians must not take a passive approach and become complacent in times of peace and forget all the things that this nation has been through.
Since we’ve been splashed with cold water and told that we’ve been asleep to our own brethren’s agony this whole time, we must not let another such incident happen. We must not fall asleep again and become the mindless people who could only ever see the news reports and read at the surface level and let it go thinking that “It’s sad but it’s not really my problem”.
Awake. Arise and stop not till the goal is reached.
Swami Vivekanada
With these words from the greatest youth icon of all times, Swami Vivekanand, I plead that we as the youth, contribute not only by chanting ”Bharat Mata ki Jai!!” in theaters or by marching on two-wheelers in hordes on Independence Day and Republic Day but also in ways that go beyond a one-off show of our love for the country.
Think of the impact we as an individual can create on the 5 people around us at a time. Think of what our actions mean for the country’s future and try and align them with its benefits.
Even becoming an economically self-reliant person helping the nation. Even the simple act of choosing NOT to ignore it when someone spews lies about our country and its history is an act towards the betterment of our country. Today’s struggle for a better India might not be easy but it’s very real and very possible. If we, the people make it happen. It will happen.
Jai Hind! Jai Bharat!
