Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "The Kashmir Files" in English language version.
[T]here is agreement at least that the number has to be a substantial proportion of the total population of the group. And here the numbers of Kashmiri Pandit killings do not technically support the use of the label of genocide. There are [also] several other factors, beyond the question of numbers, according to which the Pandits cannot be considered to be the victims of genocide.For one, they were not the sole victims of targeted killings in Kashmir since 1990.Kashmiri Muslims who dissented from the ideologies of various militant groups have also been systematically liquidated in the way in which Pandits had been. This does not conform to the accepted definition of genocide that is waged against a group defined collectively as the 'other', since Pandit claims of genocide rests on their being targeted for their religious identity.Secondly, genocide is preceded and accompanied by the dehumanisation of its victims. There is no evidence of such denial of humanity of the Pandits having taken place among the Kashmiri Muslims accused of perpetrating their mass destruction.And finally genocides are extremely well-organised acts involving the training of armed groups, indoctrinated fully into an ideological inflexibility so severe that it can override wider social opinion and consensus.There is no evidence of this having been the case in the valley.
Jammu and Kashmir: Territory in northwestern India, subject to a dispute between India and Pakistan. It has borders with Pakistan and China.
Jammu and Kashmir, state of India, located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent in the vicinity of the Karakoram and westernmost Himalayan mountain ranges. The state is part of the larger region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
My own interviews with a number of KPs in Jammu, many of whom hold Pakistan responsible, suggest suspicions of ethnic cleansing or even genocide are wide of the mark. The two conspiracy theories already described are not evidence based. As Sumantra Bose observes, those Rashtriya Swayam Sevak publications' claims that large numbers of Hindu shrines were destroyed and Pandits murdered are largely false, to the extent that many of the shrines remain untouched and many of the casualties remain unsubstantiated.
In 1991 the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the movement's parent organisation, published a book titled Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir. (Footnote 38: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir (Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1991)) It claimed among many other things that at least forty Hindu temples in the Kashmir Valley had been desecrated and destroyed by Muslim militants. In February 1993 journalists from India's leading newsmagazine sallied forth from Delhi to the Valley, armed with a list of twenty-three demolished temples supplied by the national headquarters of the BJP, the movement's political party. They found that twenty-one of the twenty-three temples were intact. They reported that 'even in villages where only one or two Pandit families are left, the temples are safe ... even in villages full of militants. The Pandit families have become custodians of the temples, encouraged by their Muslim neighbours to regularly offer prayers.' Two temples had sustained minor damage during unrest after a huge, organised Hindu nationalist mob razed a sixteenth-century mosque in the north Indian town of Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. (Footnote 39: India Today, 28 February 1993, pp.22–25)
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)According to a breakdown of those killed by the militants so far, of the total 100, 32 were Hindus (from both the valley and outside) and the rest Muslims.
... there is not a single moderate [Muslim] in The Kashmir Files.... The fact that no conflict is unidimensional, that there can be multiple oppressed groups in a region, simply doesn't dawn on this film.
My own interviews with a number of KPs in Jammu, many of whom hold Pakistan responsible, suggest suspicions of ethnic cleansing or even genocide are wide of the mark. The two conspiracy theories already described are not evidence based. As Sumantra Bose observes, those Rashtriya Swayam Sevak publications' claims that large numbers of Hindu shrines were destroyed and Pandits murdered are largely false, to the extent that many of the shrines remain untouched and many of the casualties remain unsubstantiated.
In 1991 the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the movement's parent organisation, published a book titled Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir. (Footnote 38: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir (Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1991)) It claimed among many other things that at least forty Hindu temples in the Kashmir Valley had been desecrated and destroyed by Muslim militants. In February 1993 journalists from India's leading newsmagazine sallied forth from Delhi to the Valley, armed with a list of twenty-three demolished temples supplied by the national headquarters of the BJP, the movement's political party. They found that twenty-one of the twenty-three temples were intact. They reported that 'even in villages where only one or two Pandit families are left, the temples are safe ... even in villages full of militants. The Pandit families have become custodians of the temples, encouraged by their Muslim neighbours to regularly offer prayers.' Two temples had sustained minor damage during unrest after a huge, organised Hindu nationalist mob razed a sixteenth-century mosque in the north Indian town of Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. (Footnote 39: India Today, 28 February 1993, pp.22–25)
It is to be noted that in response to a Right to Information (RTI) filed over the number of deaths of Kashmiri pandits killed by terrorists since the inception of militancy in 1990, the district police headquarters in Srinagar revealed official figures that state 89 casualties as compared to 1635 deaths of people of other faiths, during the same time.
A film that is based on the tragedy and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has instead managed to become a propaganda tool that is being used to rouse anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri passions in the country, adding to the current atmosphere of anti-minority hate that has permeated deep in society over the last eight years or so.
The film is based on the testimonies of the people scarred for generations by the insurgency in the State, and presents the tragic exodus as a full-scale genocide, akin to the Holocaust, that was deliberately kept away from the rest of India by the media, the 'intellectual' lobby and the government of the day because of their vested interests.
Employing some facts, some half-truths, and plenty of distortions, [the film] propels an alternative view about the Kashmir issue, with the intent to not just provoke... but incite.... In Agnihotri's documentation, terror has a religion and it appears every Muslim in Kashmir has been a separatist and keen to convert Hindus to Islam.... One fears, in the name of street justice, the clippings of the film will soon end up in social media to fuel further hate against one community.
The Kashmiri Pandits' pain is real and should be expressed in popular culture, but it deserved a more nuanced, more objective take rather than the 'us vs them' worldview that Agnithotri has propagated over 170 minutes.... There is no middle ground for him, as he picks and chooses instances from the past to suit his narrative.
The "truth" that the film claims to reveal is that there was a "genocide" of Pandits in the 1990s, hidden by a callous ruling establishment and a servile media. Pandits were killed in their thousands, it claims, and not in the low hundreds as the government and Kashmiri Pandit organizations have stated.
Jammu and Kashmir, state of India, located in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent in the vicinity of the Karakoram and westernmost Himalayan mountain ranges. The state is part of the larger region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
Jammu and Kashmir: Territory in northwestern India, subject to a dispute between India and Pakistan. It has borders with Pakistan and China.
[T]here is agreement at least that the number has to be a substantial proportion of the total population of the group. And here the numbers of Kashmiri Pandit killings do not technically support the use of the label of genocide. There are [also] several other factors, beyond the question of numbers, according to which the Pandits cannot be considered to be the victims of genocide.For one, they were not the sole victims of targeted killings in Kashmir since 1990.Kashmiri Muslims who dissented from the ideologies of various militant groups have also been systematically liquidated in the way in which Pandits had been. This does not conform to the accepted definition of genocide that is waged against a group defined collectively as the 'other', since Pandit claims of genocide rests on their being targeted for their religious identity.Secondly, genocide is preceded and accompanied by the dehumanisation of its victims. There is no evidence of such denial of humanity of the Pandits having taken place among the Kashmiri Muslims accused of perpetrating their mass destruction.And finally genocides are extremely well-organised acts involving the training of armed groups, indoctrinated fully into an ideological inflexibility so severe that it can override wider social opinion and consensus.There is no evidence of this having been the case in the valley.
The "truth" that the film claims to reveal is that there was a "genocide" of Pandits in the 1990s, hidden by a callous ruling establishment and a servile media. Pandits were killed in their thousands, it claims, and not in the low hundreds as the government and Kashmiri Pandit organizations have stated.
The film is based on the testimonies of the people scarred for generations by the insurgency in the State, and presents the tragic exodus as a full-scale genocide, akin to the Holocaust, that was deliberately kept away from the rest of India by the media, the 'intellectual' lobby and the government of the day because of their vested interests.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)It is to be noted that in response to a Right to Information (RTI) filed over the number of deaths of Kashmiri pandits killed by terrorists since the inception of militancy in 1990, the district police headquarters in Srinagar revealed official figures that state 89 casualties as compared to 1635 deaths of people of other faiths, during the same time.
Employing some facts, some half-truths, and plenty of distortions, [the film] propels an alternative view about the Kashmir issue, with the intent to not just provoke... but incite.... In Agnihotri's documentation, terror has a religion and it appears every Muslim in Kashmir has been a separatist and keen to convert Hindus to Islam.... One fears, in the name of street justice, the clippings of the film will soon end up in social media to fuel further hate against one community.
The Kashmiri Pandits' pain is real and should be expressed in popular culture, but it deserved a more nuanced, more objective take rather than the 'us vs them' worldview that Agnithotri has propagated over 170 minutes.... There is no middle ground for him, as he picks and chooses instances from the past to suit his narrative.
... there is not a single moderate [Muslim] in The Kashmir Files.... The fact that no conflict is unidimensional, that there can be multiple oppressed groups in a region, simply doesn't dawn on this film.
A film that is based on the tragedy and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has instead managed to become a propaganda tool that is being used to rouse anti-Muslim and anti-Kashmiri passions in the country, adding to the current atmosphere of anti-minority hate that has permeated deep in society over the last eight years or so.
My own interviews with a number of KPs in Jammu, many of whom hold Pakistan responsible, suggest suspicions of ethnic cleansing or even genocide are wide of the mark. The two conspiracy theories already described are not evidence based. As Sumantra Bose observes, those Rashtriya Swayam Sevak publications' claims that large numbers of Hindu shrines were destroyed and Pandits murdered are largely false, to the extent that many of the shrines remain untouched and many of the casualties remain unsubstantiated.
In 1991 the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the movement's parent organisation, published a book titled Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir. (Footnote 38: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Genocide of Hindus in Kashmir (Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1991)) It claimed among many other things that at least forty Hindu temples in the Kashmir Valley had been desecrated and destroyed by Muslim militants. In February 1993 journalists from India's leading newsmagazine sallied forth from Delhi to the Valley, armed with a list of twenty-three demolished temples supplied by the national headquarters of the BJP, the movement's political party. They found that twenty-one of the twenty-three temples were intact. They reported that 'even in villages where only one or two Pandit families are left, the temples are safe ... even in villages full of militants. The Pandit families have become custodians of the temples, encouraged by their Muslim neighbours to regularly offer prayers.' Two temples had sustained minor damage during unrest after a huge, organised Hindu nationalist mob razed a sixteenth-century mosque in the north Indian town of Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. (Footnote 39: India Today, 28 February 1993, pp.22–25)