New Delhi: Blasting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s administration, ‘The Kashmir Files’ director Vivek Agnihotri has said that one cannot roam freely in the State.
“…I am determined to bring the true story about Bengal to the public through my movie at any cost. I will have to complete that work before the entire Bengal becomes Kashmir. No one can stop me from doing that,” he said.
“Already there are so many ‘mini Kashmirs’ in Bengal,” he said at a seminar in Kolkata on “India’s Heritage: From Kashmir to Bengal”.
He said many parts of the Trinamool-ruled and one-time red-bastion State “have turned into Mini Kashmir”.
Agnihotri alleged that West Bengal had become a hotbed for corruption, cheap dialogues and communal violence.
He said that the rich cultural heritage of Bengal had been tarnished by “negative instances in recent periods”.
“How can I forget how I was physically targeted at Jadavpur University for my film ‘Buddha in a Traffic Jam’? I made an attempt to make a film on the 1946 communal riots in Bengal for which I had sent a team of researchers to interview some survivors who witnessed those riots. But they were not allowed to work here,” Agnihotri said.
He also stated, “Earlier all reforms and progressive thought came from Bengal. Today the State is known for corruption, communal violence and chamchagiri (sycophancy).”
Expressing concern at the growing marginalisation of Hindus in various parts of the State, he said, “Kashmir was once a Hindu land but its demography has now changed and its natives can’t live there. Before Bengal turns into another Kashmir, the youths of the State should come forward and carry forward the torch of its art and culture”.
Speaking at the seminar, BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta said, “In Bengal, we have suffered this. When there was a division of the country, here also people had to leave their homes and go to unknown new places like Kashmiri Pandits. A whole community had to leave the property of their forefathers. This common experience of disposition and exile is what binds Kashmir and Bengal together”.
The film ‘The Kashmir Files’ has been in the public space for the last one year.
In his reaction to the claims stating that the film is Islamophobic, Agnihotri recently said, “I think my audience is smart enough to discover that the main antagonist in the film is terrorism. One of the lines in the film shows the character saying Muslims and other tribes apart from Hindus are also victims of terrorist attacks. My film reached out to people”.
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