Mumbai Mirror, Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Can a film on Kashmir be non-controversial?
Last week police officials seized copies of Jashn-e-Azadi minutes before its screening for a handful of cineastes. Their accusation- the film is controversial and sensitive. But how can a film on Kashmir be otherwise?
Kak’s film begins with asking what India’s independence means to the people of Kashmir. Clearly not much given that the streets during flag hoisting are completely deserted. The journey from this point explores some of the probable reasons for this boycott. The camera takes in the beauty of the valley that mocks at the ruins of the city and the broken spirits of those left to mourn the ever increasing tribe of the dead. The harsh testimonies of grave diggers, PTSD patients and civil rights activists are punctuated by poetry from the land. These voices hoarse with pain, underpin the essential lament of the film. Why should there be any Indian worth his claim on Kashmir then who will grudge this film its portrayal of plight?
Many argue that the film ignores the massacre and consequential exodus of Kashmiri pandits from the valley after a token mention. But a filmmaker is free to choose his focus. The validity of his representation of those who are left in the valley should not be conditional to the representation of anything else.
However, the arguments in favour of the film’s objectivity are compromised perhaps by its commentary. The infinite layers of social, historical, human and political debate which the frames reveal are oversimplified by a narration which does not attempt political correctness. “Domination is not victory”, the narrator reiterates. In this context, speeches by JKLF leaders and other such radicals acquire a tinge of support even though there is some attempt to bring out the rehabilitation work the army claims to be involved in. The questions about the dignity of a people made to prove their identities in their own land are most perturbing. But within the ambit of this subject perhaps falls the role of Pakistan in fuelling the unrest and the balancing act of an underpaid army constantly at war with an unseen enemy. By denying space to these, the film risks taking an unqualified pro separatist stand without empathizing with the quandary of a nation who could be faced with 28 such very bloody demands in the future.
But political debates cannot outweigh the humanitarian and artistic concerns of a film which highlights the pathos of people living in the shadow of guns, vanquished and hopeless. Freedom of expression is a right qualified by public safety and security by law. But in this case there is hardly a security issue. The intellectual level at which this film speaks can only incite public debate which is the need of the hour.
A letter from a senior inspector of police asks the filmmaker to obtain a censor certificate before screening the film anywhere. The law is dead letter and for years it has been interpreted to suppress human rights. The area between public screenings (which require censor clearance) and private ones is grey, and therein lay the scope to interpret the law in favor of liberalism for once. But the verdict in this case has been announced without a trial. The censor board will be another battle for the filmmaker against democratorship.
Pragya Tiwari
Pragya Tiwari 