How the Bollywood lens changed on Kashmir – DW – 08/09/2025
From the mountains covered with snow to the land of a scar due to the conflict and calls for “azaadi” (freedom), Bollywood Films have formed how the world sees Kashmir.
A strong dialogue from the famous movie “Haidar” Fishal Bahdawwaj, “Haidar” goes beyond the screen, and takes control India and Pakistan.
“Are we here or not? The character Haider asks.
The dialogue also raises the issue of how Bollywood depicts Indian films industry in India, Kashmir.
Hydar is a pardor air conditioning with Shakespeare “Hamlet”, was placed against the background of the Kashmir conflict in the mid -1990s. The film provides accurate filming of violence, Poor disappearance cases Psychological losses of the conflict.
Madi Kashmir as a cinematic paradise
In contracts that followed India’s independence from colonial rule in 1947, Bollywood Kashmir is often depicted as a romantic poet: a valley located in the snow mountains, vibrant lily gardens, tank trees and lush trees.
In “Barsaat” (1949), Raj Kapoor Kashmir uses less as a political and more political topic with picturesque view of romance – escape from urban life.
Subsequent films such as “Kashmir Ki Kali” (1964) continued this trend, while rarely recognized the people or policy of the region.
According to the author and director Sanjay Kak, Kashmir worked as a stadium, “where the fantasies of the Indians can be played, as Kashmiri plays parts of bit somewhere in the background.”
KAC added that the post -independence period “was saturated with the optimism of Nahrovian for secularism and brotherhood.”
Focusing on the scene on people’s lives – romance on reality – was a Kashmir image as a paradise on the ground, attractive tourists and captures international imagination, with the basis for Bollywood’s participation later with the region’s policy.
Kashmir strict indicates a turning point for Bollywood
But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kashmir witnessed a violent tighten to combat India.
An armed rebellion in Kashmir, which is run by India, broke out after New Delhi accused the association’s elections in 1987 in favor of an Indian national alliance of political parties.
The Muslim United Front (MOF), an alliance of Islamic parties that many expected to perform well in opinion polls, lost elections.
In response to violence, the Indian government enacted the control measures, including the enforcement of laws such as 1958 Armed Forces Law (Special Forces) (AFSPA), which extends the forces out of power to the security forces.
These social political developments changed the cinematic image of Kashmir from Heaven to a place to increase militarization, fear and collective division – a prevailing image.
According to Menakshi Bahrat, author of the book “Indian Cinema and Pakistan”, the disturbances in the 1990s brought Kashmir to the Center for Political and Emotional Awareness in India.
She told DW: “The Indian cinema, as the true mirror of the Indian imagination, was forced to realize this change.”
As a result, the film’s narration has turned. Kashmir was increasingly filmed as a battlefield where the Indian soldiers fought from Pakistan.
Films such as “Roja” (1992) human stories intertwine with conflict and strict topics, freedom and identity questions.
“This film really represents the sad transformation of Kashmir as it is the placing of love into” paradise “threatened and exposed to threat.”
From “Roja” onwards, gunmen are often depicted as violent anti -anti -films – critics say that the risk risks the limit of Islamic identity to militancy.
Director KAC argued that “Roja” used Kashmir as a landscape in which the Indians can rebuild their imaginations about nationalism and patriotism.
Existential drama on the screen
By the beginning of the first decade of the twentieth century, the films began to highlight the complex social, political and emotional facts in Kashmir – including the history of the conflict and the shock of its people due to continuous violence.
This sadness that has not been solved – is characterized by disappearance and displacement and broken families – deeply formed the narratives, which paves the way for stories that intertwine with the personal tragedy with military ideologies.
Popular films in this period explored the deep Kashmir pain and the complex conflict, a balance between the harsh facts – psychological shock and extensive violence and Human rights violations In the face of the Kashmiris – with the Indian national perspective, it focuses on security and patriotism.
This double perspective still constitutes how the Kashmir story is listed on the screen.
The “Statistical” Bollywood perspective constitutes cinema novels
CAC describes Indian cinema today as “statistical”, and this greatly means parallel to government accounts.
This has become more clear since August 2019, when New Delhi canceled Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which allowed the limited area of autonomy. India claimed that half of the nutrition in Kashmir was a “radical cause” of the anti -India militancy.
“With the transformation of the position of the state, as well as the cinema,” Kak told DW.
Contemporary films reflect this shift. “Kashmir files” (2022) re -controversy by representing the exit of the Hindu Kashmiri in 1990 as “collective genocide” – narration that defended it Hindu national groups.
However, critics said that the film promotes a “unilateral” narration risking the promotion of anti -Muslims and in -depth sectarian divisions.
Meanwhile, “Article 370” (2024) supports the government’s position on Kashmir, and depicts the abolition of the semi -self -cashmere position as heroic and necessary to restore order and national unity.
Bollywood spices are seen as a mirror of the continent’s continent that captures prevailing engines and political feelings.
She said: “It is difficult for the beautiful valleys to appear as a flawless romantic frame.”
Edited by: Keith Walker
Post Comment