Disturbing reactions to the Kashmir Files -Nadav Lapid incident

Kashmir Files is such a pivotal movie that it has not just dominated the box office, and people’s minds but now it is indirectly forcing foreign countries to address the issue via officials and official Twitter handles. In the recent incident when an Israeli screenwriter Nadav Lapid called Kashmir files a ‘vulgar propaganda’ movie, people literally raised hell. So much so that the Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon wrote a letter and apologized for Lapid’s comment.

 

 

 

Lapid made these comments at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. Subsequently, he apologized for hurting Kashmiri Pandit’s sentiments. But this incident has provided an opportunity to talk about several things.

 

 

 

The problem of community responsibility: The reactions from the Indian side, and let's be honest from the Hindu side, were diverse. Some talked about Nadav Lapid’s past comments on Israel itself, and some criticized the government for inviting such a person to a government event, but then things took a little ugly turn. People started doing the worst kind of whataboutery towards the whole of Israel and the Jewish community. People started questioning Schindler’s list and questioning Holocaust as well for Lapid’s comment on Kashmir Files. The later reaction shows the underdeveloped, and as the West likes to call it ‘Third worldliness’, of the Indian mind. These people started assuming that one Israeli/Jew saying something about Kashmir Files which depicts one of the worst Human tragedies, i.e. Kashmiri Genocide of Hindus/Pandits, represents all Israelis/Jews. This way of thinking is not only horrible but also dangerous. This is the kind of community justice that Fascist, Communist, dictatorships usually have. This is the kind of thinking which leads to some JNU students talking and writing ‘Brahmins Bharat Chhodo’ and ‘there will be Blood’ on their walls. Because it holds the entire Brahmin community of today accountable for what their ancestors (not everyone’s of course) did or what other Brahmins in some parts of the country still do, i.e. Caste-based discrimination. This is exactly the same kind of thinking that Jews faced in Europe and the middle east for nearly 2000 years because ‘they killed Jesus’, the same kind of thinking which led to Pogroms in the erstwhile Russian Empire which killed thousands of Jews and the same kind of thinking which ultimately led to the Holocaust. This Socialist thinking of community justice, community rights, and community responsibilities is a disastrous road that we Indians, Hindus, need to abandon as soon as we can. Ironically, it is historically against the Indian or Hindu culture to have such thinking. We have to go back to our old ways of Individual rights, Individual responsibility, and most importantly, individual justice.

 

Also Read: Why The Kashmir files matters 

 

High-level incompetence at the bureaucratic level: Many people on social media have criticized I&B minister Anurag Thakur for this debacle. While there might be some merit in that argument, I would argue that no minister should look into these matters of who is going to be invited to such events. That is not a minister’s job. That would make a union minister into an event manager (no disrespect for event managers here). But the bureaucracy can’t possibly say that they were not responsible for this. It is their job to filter out people who would say problematic things against the incumbent government at any level at any government event. They did not do their job. At the same time, it would not be wise to call out malice on this issue from the bureaucracy. As Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes Minister said, “that would be to mistake lethargy for strategy”.

 

Also Read: Kejriwal: India's genocide denier 

 

The Free Speech debate: Another thing this incident has shown is that the hoax created by the Left-wing ecosystem around the world, which says that there is no free speech in India, is a complete sham. At IFFI, which is a government event, that ministers, bureaucrats, and other top-level government officials attend, a foreign screenplay writer criticized Kashmir Files. A movie, that the PM and many leaders of the current dispensation supported, a movie that talks about the genocide of the majority community of this country ( which is supposed to be a majoritarian country), nobody stopped him, nobody arrested him, and that's a good thing. This actually shows the kind of tolerance the Indians/Hindus have when Hindus tolerate absolute vile about Kashmir Files, a movie that shook the entire nation about the genocidal atrocities on Hindus and still did not take any violent as well as legal action against the person.

 

 

Such incidents have always happened and will continue in the future. There is nothing anybody can do to stop people with an agenda from speaking against India and the Hindus. We have to understand that as Richa Chaddha, Swara Bhaskar, Prakash Raj, Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy, etc. do not represent India, there will be such people from every single country. We cannot hold their countries or communities responsible for the Individual’s comments and opinions, no matter how untrue they are and no matter how much it hurts us.