Vivek Agnihotri slams claims that The Kashmir Files 'exploited' trauma, tragedy: 'Ask any Kashmiri Pandit..' | Exclusive

The Kashmir Files was one of the biggest sleeper hits of Indian cinema last year. The film, made on a budget of Rs 15 crore, sans any big star, made over Rs 300 crore at the box office and also earned critical acclaim. The film, which talked about the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits during their exodus from the Valley three decades, was also controversial with allegations of bias from some critics. Now, the team behind the film has come up with a docu series – The Kashmir Files Unreported – which is currently streaming on Zee5. The film and series’ director Vivek Agnihotri spoke with DNA about the show, the charges of the film being propaganda, and more. Excerpts:

The Kashmir Files came out last year and was a big hit. You have said that what was shown in the film was all truth so after that, why did you feel there was a need to go deeper with this documentary?

The whole idea started with this. We went and did interviews. Nobody does that for a feature film. We went with our team, invested our own money, recorded testimonies and met historians as well as got hold of old, rare footage – I had thought I would make a documentary out of it. But then the whole idea converted into making a feature film. Since then, I had been wanting to put it one place, as a web series.

And that experience could not have been easy because the stories are gut-wrenching...

For me, they have been life-changing. I never used to cry so much. Ab to aisa ho gaya hai ki zara sa kuch suntan hoon to aankhein geeli ho jaati hain. Now, I feel more for people because in the last six years, I have learnt what it is to be alone and isolated.

When The Kashmir Files was released last year, many people supported the film but others called it propaganda. The same is happening with Unreported as well. How do you respond to this criticism?

I have filed cases against Mamta Banerjee and other people. You say a lot of people call it propaganda and I want to ask them what the propaganda here is. If this is propaganda, then what is Student of the Year? Isn’t that propaganda for western brands of shoes and clothes? What are these family films? Aren’t they propaganda for some stupid values that nobody adheres to in this country? Aren’t the action films propaganda for violence? There are films where one hero comes in and kills hundreds of people and you have become so numb as audience that you don’t even care for the blood of those hundreds of people. What I am saying is that everything is propaganda these days. But which part, dialogue, or event of The Kashmir Files is propaganda, if anyone can tell me, I guarantee I will publicly admit and delete it. But somebody has to tell me.

One of the other charges against you and the film was that you are profiting from a tragedy and the trauma of a community, because the film made a lot of money. What do you say to that?

How do I even answer this? Shah Rukh sahab’s film (Pathaan) did a business of Rs 1000 crore, so all the RAW agents, who have died, their widows and kids should get money from that. Aamir Khan sahab should help out all the women wrestlers who were protesting since he made Dangal and it made a lot of money. There is no end to it. With this film, whatever money we – Pallavi and I – earned, we put it in The Vaccine War. We could have made Kashmir Files 2 and earned twice as much. But we did not. We will never do that.

And I don’t want to say it but I have to. I am no superstar that I will talk about myself. But meet any Kashmiri Pandit in India and ask them what Vivek and Pallavi do for their community, you will get your answer on what we do, what we don’t and how much we spend on camps or children’s education. What we do is for ourselves and not to tell the world.

When your work is criticised, one can look at it in two ways. One is that the person is opposing me for the sake of opposing because he has a different ideology. But it could also be that the person is opposing me artistically. Maybe they just did not like the film. Is it not a trap to fall in if you assume that anyone criticising you is doing it with an agenda?

Anybody who is opposing me on social media has a political agenda. Anybody who is calling me and telling me something personally does not. I was flying from Mumbai recently and Javed sahab was alongside me and we said that one day, let us all who have some differences of opinion sit and sort things out. Where is the political agenda here? My criteria is very simple. If after this interview, if you say you did not like my film, I will listen to you. But if you go home and write something on Twitter, that has a political agenda.

You have spoken about a change that has come in Hindi cinema where hard-hitting, more realistic films are working more now. Do you think that change is here to stay?

I think this is going to be evident more and more unless with lot of money power, they somehow create absolutely fake hypes about their films doing 1000 crores. That can somehow influence studios and everybody to invest in stars. But I don’t care what they are doing. What I want to do is to mentor and promote at least 8-10 filmmakers who can make these hard-hitting, rooted, earthy Indian stories. They need not necessarily be political stories.