Vivek Agnihotri on missing Muslim testimonies in Kashmir Files.Vivek Agnihotri created a sensation with his film The Kashmir Files and it turned out to be a blockbuster though many branded it as a propaganda film. To counter that Vivek Agnihotri has brought out ‘The Kashmir Files Unreported’, which is streaming on Zee 5 from August 11.
This included the testimonies of individuals who were victims of the 1990s exodus. But even then many criticized him for not including the testimonies of the Kashmiri Muslims. Speaking about it, Vivek Agniohtri says "If you really want to see balance, go to a gymnasium show, go to a circus - those girls walking on the rope, they balance very well. Or, you can listen to some politicians or some media people who do very good monkey-balancing. But it's not an artist's job. A storyteller cannot balance things."
He went on to ask "If you are showing atrocities against Dalits by the upper cast, why nobody says balance it between both? When you show that police is oppressing poor people, everybody claps at those films. Why not balance them? Every cop is not a bad guy! When we pass these kinds of statements that politicians are corrupt, why don't we balance it?"
He pointed out "Good and bad cannot be balanced. Ram and Ravan cannot be balanced. It's impossible. People are either very, very vicious and very inhuman or they're naive or are plain idiots if they can't see that all the Kashmiri pundits, who are the natives of this land, don't live here at all. And even if somebody from any Hindu family comes from outside, he is targeted, he is killed. He's targeted every day,"
He added But have you ever met even one Kashmiri Muslim who says ‘Oh, I live in Delhi because I was forced out of Kashmir’. Do you even imagine it in your wildest of the most fantastical dreams? You'll find Buddhists, you'll find Dalits, you'll find Gujjars, you'll find Hindus who don't live here anymore."
"So, if somebody is saying that I have to balance, is either a very, very vicious person, inhuman, barbaric, who justifies oppression. It's like somebody who justifies rape, right? What would you think of that person? Or that person is naïve, gullible. He's been brainwashed or (he is) a dumb idiot, a stupid person. Only these three kinds of people can say something like that about balancing. And if anybody who even asks why it's not balanced, I think you know the answer,"
He brushed it out saying “No, this is only about Kashmiri pundits, right? If there is a series on Holocaust, on the video testimonials of Jews, about war crimes, it is like saying, ‘Do we also find some voices of some Nazis’? No, you don't. A film, a document or series about the oppression of women will never ever find the voice of a man who oppressed! Period. Simple. This question is invalid.”