The Kashmir files reminder: Denying truth for tolerance’s sake destroys both truth and tolerance

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the kashmir files reminder denying truth for tolerance sakes damages and even destroys both truth and tolerance the kashmir files movie has caught india by storm with its shocking depiction of the horrifying genocide of the kashmiri hindus and their abject story with what is shocked the indian mind is not just how horrific the genocide was but how something that happened to just people like just like each one of us people who are living ordinary lives how something that happened to so many people was was denied for so long the movie does not pander to sensationalism with either romance or any superhuman heroics by any of the actors it just depicts how ordinary life lived by common people was suddenly brutally and irrevocably devastated by extremists who justified their cause not just with utter brazenness but even with a gloating self-righteousness based on their interpretation of their faith so how is it that such a story could have such a horrifying incident could have been denied for so long within the movie and outside people have drawn parallels with the holocaust in which the jews were primarily targeted in millions while the scale of the genocide of the of the kashmiri hindus and their subsequent desperate fleeing for their lives is not as big as that of the holocaust but the principle is the same when the holocaust has been repeatedly depicted and retold through novels through movies through documentaries through monuments why is it that the mainstream media has completely neglected the plight of the kashmiri hindus it is not that kashmir was not there in the public mind bollywood has been depicting kashmir in various movies but this story has been completely sidelined so now one explanation could be that there are people who are ill-intentioned who are malevolent and who are out to destroy hindus in general when an explanation is to be found for something which is difficult to explain it is in the spirit of charity to not gravitate towards the worst explanation so rather than focusing on outright malevolence let’s look at a lesser explanation such as incompetence or ignorance so there are there could be well-intentioned people who do not want india to be torn apart by religious violence by communal riots and therefore they may feel that talking about such stories will only incite violence and communal unrest so for the sake of tolerance they may say that we should downplay the truth or even deny it but does it actually help when truth is denied for tolerance sake what actually happens when we talk about tolerance how is tolerance going to be fostered we live today in a multicultural world where we will be inevitably interacting with people of different faiths and the only way we can live harmoniously is if people in general from various communities are encouraged and empowered to become tolerant so if real incidents of intolerance occur then what should be the attitude towards them so i’ll talk about what is the truth what exactly is tolerance how truth and tolerance may both be destroyed and how truth and tolerance can both be fostered together so the truth is that these horrendous incidents occurred every single incident in Vivekanand movie is based on real events as narrated by hundreds of first-person narratives given by kashmiri pundits the names may be changed so the kashmiri hindus left in thousands in millions why they had lived there for not just generations but for centuries why would they leave suddenly to say that they left just because they didn’t have the prominent position in society anymore is the most absurd explanation because what did they get after leaving they left with practically none of their possessions they left with their homes and just left with their this skin on their bodies and the clothes on their bodies and they lived like refugees for so long for decades so why would they do something like that unless there was a mortal threat to their life so the truth is undeniable but when we deny the truth does it actually foster tolerance actually it will simply empower the intolerant intolerance in terms of insisting that we alone are right and everybody else who is who disagrees with us is not just wrong is not just wrong-headed but is evil and should be destroyed that is the enemy of humanity and intolerance can rise within the human psyche and in human society because of various excuses and whenever it rises it is the duty of human society of any civilized human society to suppress intolerance to fight against it and if it is not fought against then intolerance will grow tolerance will not grow if consider for example at present in many parts of the world intolerance is manifesting through islamic extremism there have been intolerance because of nazi ideology there has been intolerance because of marxist ideology but presently it is significantly manifesting through extremism justified in the name of islam so this extremism this intolerance has to be stopped intolerance now we may say that oh don’t talk about a particular religion because that will foster intolerance that will foster a communal unrest and violence well no the nature of intolerance is that intolerance will turn up not again not only against people of other religious faiths but eventually against people of one’s own faith who do not agree with one’s interpretation of that particular faith that’s why we see even within islam there is immense conflict between shias and sunnis and there is bloodshed and it’s not just now there’s a history going on for centuries so when india was partitioned into pakistan the muslims who stayed in india they hardly have any shia sunni conflict but in many islamic countries this conflict is severe and between countries it is there so if we as human beings allow intolerance to survive and thrive by covering up those stories we are not just harming the faiths to that which intolerance tolerates that means islamical intolerance will tolerate will target hindus but it will also target other muslims so it is actually in the interest of moderate muslims that the stories of intolerance be exposed if we deny the truth for the sake of tolerance we hurt both truth and tolerance how is the truth hurt as the movie depicted the younger hero character his whole family was killed in the genocide but he grew up believing that they just died in an accident and the end result is that the historical memory is wiped out and as it is said that history repeats itself those who don’t learn the lessons from history will have to undergo those painful lessons again so yes it is important that we expose tell the naked story of intolerance so that humanity itself whatever be its faith can be protected from this demoniac force of intolerance the bhagavad gita talks about three broad ways of functioning three broad attitudes towards living sattva rajas and tamas goodness passion and ignorance so in sattva we see the situation as accurately as possible and act as judiciously as possible in rajas we act primarily for our immediate and sensual pleasures in tamas we act based on only one perception of reality or one aspect of reality while neglecting the entire picture the bigger picture even if it harms us so krishna talks in the gita about knowledge in the mode of ignorance where we take one thing and make it into everything so for example today’s mainstream media and even the significant amount number of secular intellectuals and certainly the left-wing intellectuals they all are especially concerned about islamophobia that we shouldn’t be fostering islamophobia that’s why in many newspapers even when a crime is committed by a muslim even a terrorist crime is committed the names are not mentioned at all or they’re mentioned somewhere in the fine print a former president of america was criticized even by mainstream americans because while the isis was spreading them dangerously he refused to use the word islamist with it although that was there in its name itself so yes we don’t want islamophobia to spread but the way to prevent it is not by denying the existence of islamic extremism but by countering it and countering it requires the systematic depiction of the dangers and horrors of extremism i have muslim friends and even they were shocked at the brutality of what was done in the name of their religion so if the horror of extremism is not depicted then those who are moderates either they start thinking that they are being unfairly targeted while they do nothing to act to counter the real extremism that is creeping into their society sometimes not just creeping but marching in into their community and if it is extremists who are allowed to just go on then the moderates get sidelined outside and silenced and in today’s world it is vital if we consider india it is a remarkable example of how a country with multiple faiths can survive and even thrive pakistan was created specifically for muslims but the ahmadiyya muslims who chose to go to pakistan are being persecuted there and ahmadiyya muslims in india are living far safer and better than even in pakistan so the point is when extremism is allowed then it makes life hellish for everyone even those who remain silent about extremism and even those who are parts of the groups in whose name that extremism is being done now if you consider at a deeper level the causes of extremism many people try to deny the fact that oh is it associated with islam there are different religious traditions in the world and some are exclusivist so for example islam and christianity hold that their way is the only way of course there are notable exceptions who are pluralist or inclusivist but in their mainstream versions these are exclusivist and therefore they are very vulnerable to extremism if i believe that if i am taught to believe that everybody else who does not agree with my faith is not only wrong but is even is being seduced by the devil is or is worse is doing the work of the devil then it’s very easy for self-serving leaders be they political leaders or religious leaders to actually radicalize those people who have already heard such a story so if we compare india which got independence about 75 years ago and we compare other countries if we consider say nigeria where there were only exclusivist religions there were christianity in islam both of them are in locked in a severe conflict and that is there is several countries in africa also so if india is to survive the innate tolerance of hinduism is vital for its survival so hinduism is tolerant because at its core theologically it is accepted and celebrated the truth manifests itself in different ways and can be approached in different ways so sometimes it is portrayed as if in india with the current government muslims and christians are constantly being persecuted however the truth is that those incidents are very rare and even those incidents are widely propagated they are often distorted so the story of a christian nun in bengal being raped by a hindu was widely propagated in the media but eventually what was found was that she was raped by an immigrant who happened to be muslim and who had come from bangladesh but that story hardly came in the news and whenever it came the it came on the not on the front pages and also the actual religion of the culprit was downplayed so the fact that muslims are living reasonably well and they can live that is true in india independent of what the media portrays in fact the current indian prime minister was felicitated with the highest civilian award by the saudi government so if india were filled with people who are intolerant toward muslims why would the government of mecca and madina which is the highest center of islam be felicitating such a head of state under whose rule something like this is happening so these kind of distorted narratives have to be rejected and what we need to focus on is help everyone see the horrible reality of intolerance and thereby equip everyone to counter it so the kashmir files is not a movie that is meant to foster islamophobia it is not a movie meant to criticize or condemn islam it is meant to unite humanity unite primarily all indians and secondarily all of humanity to fight against extremism to fight against intolerance in whatever garb it comes and if it comes in the garb of islamic extremism then all thoughtful responsible sensitive human beings be they hindus or muslims or christians or of any faith be united in countering this extremism and that way we can have greater harmony and eventually greater prosperity the kashmir files movie is a landmark in the indian bollywood industry and we hope that many more stories of the horrors that have happened in india are portrayed and thereby the truth is told and that truth becomes the soundest basis for an ethos of tolerance thank you very much