Open letter to Mr Vivek Agnihotri

I watched #TheKashmirFiles yesterday after support from our PM.

Thanks for sharing the story of injustice to Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir valley in 1990 and beyond.

I think after doing such stupendous work, there was responsibility on you to share "morals of the story" and not just the story. 

You should have lighted the path with the change and solutions needed to prevent such incidents from recurring instead of leaving it open minded. 

I understand, as an artist, you just share the art and leave the interpretation and solutions to complex problems to people responsible for it like administrators, advisors etc. 

But neither those people care about a movie nor the general public who get most influenced by it are equally intelligent and mature. 

People are going to draw all the wrong conclusions and it can worsen the situation in the country instead of improving it. 

We can have more problems and lesser solutions because of your work because you missed the last 5 minutes of the movie where you could have put the questions for people to debate on!

You should have asked viewers to debate on the following questions:

1. It is not about fight between Religion X vs Religion Y. We do not promote religious divide and ask these questions to viewers:

• Are you going to hate muslims or Islam after watching this movie? 
• Is this about Hindu vs Muslim? If so, then in 1984, many Hindus did far worse to Sikh families. One of my uncle faced it, so I have first hand knowledge. So, should it then be Hindus Vs Sikhs? 
• Some of the worst people I know, whom I hate so much beyond limits that I bow to Devi and seek their end, are Hindus who pretend to worship Devi. So, is it Devi vs Devi then or Hindus vs Hindus if I cannot find axis of caste or region to divide?
•  Some other person will come and say see, muslims were attacked by Hindus in this place etc. If there are X religions, then Xc2 combinations can be created and examples could be find where one party did injustice to another.

• A simple minded person would just grow hatred for muslims, innocent muslims in India will feel threatened and will create subconscious bonhomie with other muslims and a hatred for non-muslims. 
  
  
• Such subconscious manipulation of society is very hard to reverse.

2. Educate and not bash a widely followed religion:

Does Religion X promote "killing of kafirs"? Rewind to the dialogue of character in movie and ask people - is he right or wrong? 

After watching this movie, both Muslims and non-muslims should have better understanding of Islam and no one should have hate for the religion. You should've presented conclusion like Islam does not promote killing of others and people doing it are "napaak" who will go to "jhannum". Maybe you could have included a 2 min interview with a muslim cleric who is non fanatic :) Even I do not have any understanding of Islam but your movie unscrupulously exploits my fear and ignorance and pushes me in the wrong direction which is unfortunate.

Tell more about the good muslim (kaul chacha) who was hanged to the tree for giving shelter to Hindus. He was a muslim only. People watching your movie should have come out with the resolve that if we are born as a muslim, we will become muslim like kaul chacha and not like Yasin malik.

3. Changes in media: You've rightly bashed the media in the movie by calling them rakhail of terrorists. I LOVE YOU. REALLY. But what is the solution? Can you suggest changes which can either be passed by parliament or a petition in the top court? 

Let me give you an example. Today, if a crime happens with a particular gender, no matter how severe, it will not be reported by a single big media. But if a trivial crime happens with other gender, it is national debate on all TV channels and people take to streets with candles. This has resulted in gross over-empowerment of this other gender resulting in extremely biased laws which has created monsters, where the mere statement of this other gender monster, can destroy the lives of families who were unlucky to come across such monsters.

4. Govt policies & other questions

So, what happened in Kashmir - A local politician, some faruq abdulah helped his vote base get guns to kill people who are not his voter base. If I am in this politician position, it is best for me that all my enemies and haters die. But that's not the right thing. People like me who worry about right or wrong never hold much power because we are not drawn towards it. 

All people in the world, out of greed for power, will do this. Sometimes it is misuse of laws against them (SC/ST person misusing law against general person to settle personal score), sometimes it is just one party gets the gun and shoots another and then lives at the mercy of local politicians who will protect the gunman until he can kill his enemies.

These things happen across the world. The questions are:

a) Should India make guns a fundamental right like the US? Why not! I need the right to defend and at least in war situations, our constitution should have provision to have this right. In kashmir, there was/is a war situation and they should have been able to order guns online legally.

b) Are Kashmiri Pandits right in not defending themselves through arms and battle? Were they just outnumbered and a small minority (2% of 2% as the movie said, i.e. they were just 2% in kashmir at that time? What prevented states from giving them shelter and why did they suffer in camps?)

c) Why did the Indian government not respond? What if it happens today - do we have any process where people can raise their grievance? How many such grievances were raised? Were they answered? What are the grievances of people in 2022? Is there any GENOCIDE HAPPENING IN 2022 [HINT: MALE GENOCIDE due to misuse of laws created to protect women and its destructive impact on families, culture, children and the existence of nation] which will be told to us in 2052 or 2082? Can we do something about it or just outrage about 1990? If yes, what? 

d) How did terrorists got guns? It just seemed like a bunch of frustrated mulla boys who got guns. Such frustrated boys exist in every colony in every street of India.

e) Even today hindu and bjp leaders get killed instantly in Kashmir. So what would change kashmir? Where were your suggestions?

f) Is it BJP vs Congress? Absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter how good our PM is doing and how bad the current khangress is, sooner or later, we will have bad leaders who will do evil irrespective of the party. Can we find what is common between kashmiri politicians and what could be done to prevent election of such politicians and choosing better ones.

g) Colleges are hotbed for propaganda. In Pakistan, they catch you at the ae of four, In india, they're catching you at 16-17 if you escape earlier. In both ages, you're immature. You can be told anything with some melodrama and you will believe it. At 40, you start learning from your own experiences. How can it be prevented?

h) Make it justice vs Injustice - show injustice to both sides, how each side behave etc.

I hope you will consider this and make changes in your movie immediately to touch upon some of these questions by adding an additional 5-10 min clip to the end of the movie. The movie is growing like wildfire and your efforts can actually save this country.