Bollywood Is Fueling Modi’s Hindu-Nationalist Agenda

Bollywood Is Fueling Modi’s Hindu-Nationalist Agenda
People stand outside a movie theater screening “The Kashmir Files,” (photo by Debarchan Chatterjee for NurPhoto via AP).

It would be shocking to learn that 4,000 Kashmiri Pandits, a Hindu minority living in a Muslim-majority disputed territory, were killed in a genocide in the 1990s, and that information about the killings was deliberately suppressed. Indeed, it would be shocking, if it were true.

That the claim is false, however, did not stop Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi from recommending “The Kashmir Files” to members of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. The film, which presents itself as being based on true stories, inaccurately portrays the violent and distressing exodus of Hindus from the Kashmir Valley as a genocide.

“All of you should watch it,” Modi said in March 2022 at a meeting with BJP parliamentarians. “The film has shown the truth which has been suppressed for years.”

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