Singapore has reportedly banned Bollywood movie The Kashmir Files, saying the film has been assessed to be “beyond” the city-state’s film classification guidelines, according to reports that emerged on Monday. “The film will be refused classification for its provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims and the depictions of Hindus being persecuted in the on-going conflict in Kashmir,” the authorities told Channel News Asia. “These representations have the potential to cause enmity between different communities, and disrupt social cohesion and religious harmony in our multiracial and multi-religious society."
The Kashmir Files, which was released across the country on March 11, depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley in the 1990s. Though the film, starring Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Mithun Chakraborty and Darshan Kumar, was called out for its problematic politics by some critics and authors, it performed well at the box office by minting over Rs 350 crore.
Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri on Thursday said there was an international political campaign against him and his film by foreign media outlets which led to the Foreign Correspondents Club and the Press Club of India (PCI) cancelling his press conference. Instead, the 48-year-old director held his press conference at a five-star hotel in the heart of the national capital, less than a kilometre away from the PCI.
Agnihotri said the movie does not promote Islamophobhia in the country and rather talks against "terrorism". "There is an international political campaign against the film. They blame us for Islamophobia. I categorically put on record that Islamophobia is being used as a political weapon against my film under an international political conspiracy. The film is actually anti-terrorism. The film does not use even once the word 'Muslim'. The film does not use the word Pakistan or Pakistani. It's an anti terrorism film...," he said.