I thought of penning down a review of Kashmir Files but as I was doing it, I realized that I would rather write about learnings and takeaways from the film considering that Vivek Agnihotri hardly made a film and rather presented truth to us without mincing words, something that we are not used to. I realized that the number of points worth mentioning are too many and with most people not having an appetite for anything that takes more than 3 minutes and 30 seconds to read, they wouldn’t read it anyway. So I decided to break down my takeaways from the film into three major parts, and here goes the first one.

The most harmful people are not the terrorists or those who shelter other terrorists openly because of their allegiance to religion, but those who act like the shelter to hundreds of gullible people – shelter in the form of Cultural Marxists. people who are educated in terms of degrees and thus looked up to, who are associated with all things deemed to be cultural, who are well spoken, look good and easy for people to believe as “being right”. The character of Pallavi Joshi on the frame of Nivedita Menon and Arundhati Roy. These revolutionary people are the real problem. The character of Krishna Pandit, with a name and role that resembles Kanhaiya Kumar in a more tolerable way, who is seen swaying between getting brainwashed by his teacher and believing the people back home who have lived through the Kashmir problem, is when my heart actually cried out. The teacher who puts him up as the electoral candidate for college elections does it all too well, and for that I went from hating Krishna to feeling bad for him to loving him, repeatedly, although I admit that I still couldn’t hate him as much as Kanhaiya Kumar. But I knew the problem every time I started abhorring him. We should’ve lived in a society that could’ve gunned down these intellectual terrorists, but sadly we will never be able to do so, forget calling them so except in articles like these. Everyone has freedom of speech and expression, and these people use it cunningly through their lectures in college, through the songs they write, through the movies they make, through the books they author, through the theater productions they finance and various art forms that appeal to different parts of India … which brings me to cultural hubs like Bengal.

This is the most crucial part that I want Bengalis to pay attention to, and others too who are inclined to any form of art and culture. Speaking of myself, I’m a typical Bengali, a Bengali bhodrolok or bhodromohila to use the correct gender. And no, for the uninitiated, bhodrolok isn’t an abuse. It is however used sarcastically these days to talk about those urban Bengalis who use their bhodrolok image to either keep shut conveniently or to say polite things to cover up real problems. Again like the Cultural Marxists, these people are from good ranks in society, educated, articulate and easy to give credibility to. Art and culture appeal to me too, which is why I understand how we have been easy prey. With an appetite for these things, the terrorists among us who have all been Communists (not necessarily belonging to one or two parties with such a name), many of whom are in your and my families as I write this, have used it against us. If you try putting a finger on the exact incident in your life when it all started, you will find it difficult. Colleges like JNU, JU and some others where no matter when you walk in, you will always find a huge section of people protesting for everything under the Sun. They are a much bigger problem than the terrorists themselves. Students walking out of these institutions having studied irrelevant subjects that give them degrees, end up feeling a dangerous combination – educated and revolutionary. They end up becoming rebels without a reason or for all the wrong reasons, and silently become enemies of the nation. There’s no vaccine against this breed other than openly disassociating with them, even if it means you will be left with fewer friends and family members. Till the time you can’t do this, there’s no point blaming them. They will study theories of Economics from all over the world, but not have an iota of knowledge on how to improve the economy of their own State or even a village in one district. But they will be the first ones to pick up banners on GDP, on how the poor must be helped, on how prices of commodities should be reduced, etc. Mini versions of the likes of Amartya Sen, who couldn’t even do justice in his role as Chancellor of a new Nalanda University. Shun these people from your circles. I admit all of it can’t be done in a day, but you can start the process and it can begin at this very moment. Shun these urban naxals and most of our problems will be fixed. Wake up to the problem of Cultural Marxism, and identify when these art forms have been used against you, against real victims and ultimately against the nation. Separatists and nihilists, people who desire the possibilities but reject the responsibilities, are anything but social activists.

Thank you Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri and team for showing this truth without mincing words, the message is for us to take and then to further implement in little and big ways.

Part -2 https://patrakari.com/kashmir-files-names-do-matter/