Jashn-e-Azadi: Half-truths All the Way

VIVEK HAS NEVER been to Kashmir; he knows Kashmir as any other Indian would – through the biased NDTV programmes or newspapers, neither of which present the true picture. Yet somehow what he asked me surprised me. At the end of the documentary, viz., Jashn-e-Azadi, he inquired of me why the movie did not have even a byte on Mirwaiz (in Vivek’s opinion Mirwaiz is the tallest amongst Kashmiri separatists). I had taken Vivek with me because I thought he would relieve me of the boredom of sitting through a rather long monologue-cum- endorsement session lasting over two hours on Shahadat and Azadi. I half knew the answer, for, I was watching it for the second time. When I watched it the first time, I missed the initial 20-odd minutes because I was not allowed into the auditorium lest I should spoil the celebration of freedom (Jashn-e-Azadi). Wonder what censorship this was? I had to produce an e-mail invitation from the respected director to get into the hall, for, authorities were strict on anyone who chose not to obey them. Anyway, that was behind me now but the spirit of celebration should continue, should it not?


I left without answering Vivek. I was far too buried in thoughts of Jashn. I took the road back to my house, not my home that had already been burnt down. Oh! Way back in 1990, the Jashn of Azadi was celebrated by torching my home in Bagat-i-Kanipora, in the night, when we were all supposed to be celebrating Janamashtami in the cool climes of our homes. The morning newspapers brought news of this ‘celebration’ to the refugee camp, which has been my home ever since. I am sure a lot of people would say Mr Jagmohan asked the Pandits to leave; even assuming that to be true for the sake of argument, did it give the licence to ‘Sanjay Kak’s protagonists’ to burn down my house and desecrate my religious centres? Was that the way to celebrate freedom? Maybe the director believed it was. That’s why although he sat sombre on the banks of Rembyaar in Shopian (while shooting for the movie), seeing the pathetic condition of a 5th Century shrine (of Kapalmochana which is now a broken Shivling, a desecrated spring and razed Dharamshala) he did not deem it fit to be included as part of the movie.


A woman, whose goat was consumed by the fire that engulfed her house and cowshed, was shown grieving for her goat. I wondered what would have happened to Mather and Chander, my two cows. Did the spirit of ‘celebration’ (Jashn-e-Azadi) consume them too? Wonder, whether the cows were Hindu or Muslim but my father bought them from one Mohd Yusuf in my village.


My wandering thoughts, much like the beard of my dear friend Masood, often give me sleepless nights in exile. This was destined to be one such night. I was instantaneously reminded of the curse of ‘Lakshmi’ on us; it is mentioned in the Kashmiris “Nilamata Purana 294-96.” According to the Purana, the angry Visoka cursed Kas’mira, "O wicked one, as I have been absorbed by you today by means of falsehood and you have informed Sati about my activities, so your people will be mostly liars, possessed of impurities, hired servants and dishonoured in the worlds.”


What else could account for the numerous graveyards, where a thousand flowers could have easily bloomed? What else explains Kashmiris being slaves for the last 800 years? Sanjay Kak does mention our slavery of 800 years in his movie; what he however does not mention is who the masters were. Who enslaved us? He would not say. Half-truths, as they say, can be more dangerous than complete lies. Pyare Hatash’s verses lead even an ordinary non-Kashmiri to believe that he is also a protagonist of the Azadi. The translation of the couplet from Rajatarangni is faulty and again misinterpreted. Calling Kalhana the chronicler of Hindu Kings is a mischief played in a subtle manner Therein lies the game of the moviemaker—his adeptness at appropriating the content.


The magnum opus (sorry for my description, but I am yet to see a longer documentary; probably verbosity is a virtue associated with Kak) has its own figures for the dead and the exiled. The documentary says 200 Kashmiri Pandits were killed and 1,60,000 exiled. When these numbers were shown on the screen, the first image that flashed before my eyes was that of Brijlal (my father’s best friend) and Choti. Brijlal (a driver in the Department of Agriculture) and his wife Choti were tied to a jeep in their native village and then dragged till dead. When we received their bodies they had been chopped into small pieces reminding one of the meat one buys from a butcher. Blood still was fresh in some of their veins, even as it had reddened the bag in which we received the body or whatever was left of the bodies. What a way to celebrate Azadi? Kudos to the ‘Robin Hoods’ who did this, kudos to the director for endorsing their way of celebration. I never knew sickness and creativity could be part of such mental frames. Beware… a lot of modern day Neros are around the corner.


When I asked Sanjay Kak the source of these figures, he said he had obtained these from some Joint Secretary in MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs), New Delhi. I did not doubt the respected director’s statement. When I asked him to reveal the source that put the figures of those killed since 1990 at 1,00,000 he strangely had no GoI (Government of India) statistics to support his figures. Who believes GoI anyway? I have received a reply to my petition under the RTI (Right To Information) which said that only 16,455 civilians had been killed in Kashmir since 1990. Now who would believe that figure? Had GoI been scared, as Kak would have us believe selectively, we wouldn’t have had the movie in the first place.


The lead character is Yasin Malik around whom the movie revolves (a saviour, a Gandhian, an ex-terrorist in a new attire, all rolled into one), giving us sermons, telling us how he treads the path of non-violence. There are flashes of Azam Inquilabi and Syed Ali Shah Geelani (as patriarchs) but it conveniently skirts other separatist leaders, leading anyone to speculate whether the self-styled Che Guvera’s of today (based in Delhi) are keen to project Yasin Malik alone as a leader of the masses or is there more to it. His presence at the first screening raised a lot of eyebrows and the discussions revolved more around Yasin Malik than the movie itself, with a heckling audience putting him in a fix over his past but then as they say ”every saint has a past, every thief a future”. The lead character says India wants to impose Brahmanical imperialism in Kashmir. Does our lead character even know the meaning of the term “Brahman” or was that a borrowed metaphor from Arundhati Roy, which he did not understand but knew how to use?


At one point, the documentary says, “Kashmir is the most militarized region in the valley.” Maybe it is. I remember, back in our village, as a kid, I literally walked around a policeman – I wanted to know how a policeman looked! For all of us he was an alien who had somehow fallen off his spaceship and landed at our village. What then explains the presence of army and para-military forces in the same village when until 1989 the villagers had not even spotted a policeman properly? The movie does not mention why the army had to be placed there after 1989. Is not it imperative for a filmmaker to show a complete picture and not half-truths?


While I was almost sobbing when I looked at the images of graveyards, I was reminded of Abdul Sattar Ranjoor who was not allowed to be buried in the village graveyard by Sanjay Kak’s ‘Robin Hoods’. The documentary once again fails to present a balanced view and seems more like a mouthpiece or propaganda machinery at work. It simply fails to take into account any view divergent from the agenda that the director (or whoever influences him) had set for himself. How else does one explain the absence of any other point of view in the documentary? Who can argue against the fact that a large section of the masses wants Azadi, but it would be equally foolish to believe that no other point of view exists. Again half-truths come to fore with consummate ease.


Sanjay Kak wrote to me that it was not a movie on Pandits. We can understand that, knowing well what and who it is all about. Would not it have been better if Pandits had been ignored in the movie than show a falsified and biased version of Pandits’ pain and sufferings through a minute-and- a-half screen appearance of their abandoned houses? It seemed like a deliberate attempt to rub salt into the Pandits’ wounds. What also comes to fore is the lack of knowledge about the issue on which the director has made the movie. His self-hatred is clearly visible in the movie; he believes that Pandits had been unfair to Muslims during the Dogra rule. Maybe it is not entirely incorrect, but when I confronted him on his knowledge of medieval Kashmir (when Hindus were persecuted), the same was found wanting. I cannot imagine writing a column without delving deep into the subject, but then Sanjay Kak is a different person; he can make a movie on Kashmir without even reading the basic texts. A good documentary does not take sides; it simply documents and presents facts as they are. Here the director is never seen to be either endorsing or negating what he shows. When Sanjay Kak explains the meaning and essence of the term Shahadat, the swell of adrenalin is clearly audible in his voice. To prove his point he has even borrowed footages which make it look exactly like the sexed up Power Point presentation that USA made to UN as their basic premise for attacking Iraq.


History is replete with neo-converts going the extra mile to prove which side of the bread is buttered, but I believe the director wants to walk all through the Safar-e-Azadi (similar sounding names….wonder who directs whom) to prove his loyalty to the only leader of Kashmir, Yasin Malik.
Jashn-e-Azadi, the documentary made on the Kashmir issue, presents only half-truths about Kashmir; it disturbs many of the viewers, who know the ‘reality’. A good documentary does not take sides; it simply documents and presents facts as they are.