Vivek Agnihotri on Facing Threats After The Release of The Kashmir Files: ‘Can’t Go Out And Meet My Family…’

Vivek Agnihotri claimed recently he had faced threats and was questioned for the depiction of characters in The Kashmir Files.

Filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files was released on March 11, 2022, stunned everyone with its box office numbers. Featuring Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty, Darshan Kumar, Pallavi Joshi, Chinmay Mandlekar, the film collected Rs 340 worldwide, making it the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022. On Saturday, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri claimed that he faced threats and was questioned for the depiction of characters in his film. He said probably Steven Spielberg would not have faced so much criticism for Holocaust drama Schindler’s List. 

Calling for another freedom movement or cultural renaissance, he said the need of the hour was to free the country from fake secularism. There are two kinds of faith systems in the world with one being the open source faith system where one can imagine one’s god in whichever way one wants. “Even if you don’t believe in god, no problem. In the end, you learn that you are that,” he said after releasing the book The 10 Gunas (Mindsets) authored by Prof PR Mukund, here.

Perhaps, India is the only country that followed and also perhaps the only surviving open source faith system. “That’s why you find people persecuted in their own country coming to India,” Agnihotri said.

The invaders who came to Kashmir were persecuted in their own country and they took shelter. “We gave them refuge in our country. It is unfortunate that they deceived us and started looting and converting the people in Kashmir,” he claimed.

India is the only country in the history of humanity that nurtures religions in the world while all other societies in the world have destroyed or killed other religions, he further claimed.

“If you look at the minorities, the world over it is a problem on how to deal with the Islamic minority. But, in India, you find all kinds of places of worship. Here, you welcome everybody and their religions. This is the open-source faith system. The close source faith system is: I tell you, therefore you believe. Who has written the code, I don’t know. The code has said this is it, so you have to believe it. If you don’t believe it you can’t use the code. If you say anything against the code, we will destroy you. You have seen this recently in Udaipur,” Agnihotri further said.

Vivek Agnihotri took an example of Udaipur Tailor’s Murder

Two men slit the throat of a tailor in Rajasthan’s Udaipur and posted a video on social media where they claimed that they are avenging an insult to Islam following former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s remarks on Prophet Mohammad. This triggered communal tensions in Rajasthan city.

That’s why in Indian culture there is no word for blasphemy, Agnihotri said. “We are going through a strange kind of phenomena. Here, what is true and correct for the world is being challenged by regressive systems. Therefore, a need for a cultural renaissance, a cultural revolution, is very very important in the country,” he said.

Vivek Agnihotri on how his life has now become

“I can’t go out. I am a social person. I can’t meet my own family. All my movement is restricted…this is so unfortunate,” he said while adding that his “life has become like a person”. “Imagine Steven Spielberg who made Schindler’s List about the Holocaust. Imagine, Spielberg getting security and threats after making the film. It never happened,” he said. But this happens in our country because of ignorance and journalists ask him very often why he had claimed 4,000 people were killed, Agnihotri said.

“I say when Mr Spielberg makes the film and says six million Jews were killed, nobody in the world asks. Whatever he says, you believe it because in the moment of compassion and in a tragedy of such nature, you don’t go on counting the dead bodies. There are dead bodies, that’s enough,” he said.

Also, he thanked Tamil Nadu for the overwhelming response to his film on the exodus of Kashmir pandits.

-With inputs from PTI