What Is the Story About?
ZEE5’s documentary series ‘The Kashmir Files: Unreported’ offers an even more detailed look at the rise of insurgency and the horrifying killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir Valley post 1990. Through in-depth interviews with experts on Kashmir, erstwhile administrators, and displaced Kashmiri Hindus, the 7-part series gives an insight into the genesis of the Kashmir problem and its escalation in subsequent years.
The Kashmir Files: Unreported is written by Tripti Kappu Sharma, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, and produced by Pallavi Joshi.
Performances?
The series features one-on-one chats with displaced Kashmiri Pandits. It also features in-depth interviews with luminaries such as TV9 editor Aditya Raj Kaul; Army veteran and president of All India Kashmiri Samaj, Col Tej Tikoo; co-founder of Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora, Rakesh Kumar Kaul, among others.
Analysis
If you’ve watched Vivek Agnihotri’s own ‘The Kashmir Files’, either in the theatres or on ZEE5, then the events of ‘The Kashmir Files: Unreported’ will not come as much a shock to you. Creators Vivek Agnihotri and Pallavi Joshi have taken the content from their 2022 film and offered a more detailed, more heart-rending look at the events of 1990 and beyond in the form of this documentary series.
The Kashmir Files: Unreported bares even more details of the brutal killings of Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir, through frank chats with the kith and kin of those murdered in 1990. The interviews are both chilling and heartbreaking, with the potential to shake you to the core. Unlike the film, however, the makers have refrained from showing horrific images of the killings, especially the particularly brutal ones like Girija Tikku’s.
Each of the murders of well-known Kashmiri Pandit personalities of those times, retired sessions judge of Srinagar Nilkanth Ganjoo, poet Sarwanand Kaul Premi, advocate Tika Lal Taploo, Doordarshan official Lassa Kaul, and philanthropist P N Bhat, among others, is recounted through detailed descriptions and interviews with their descendants.
is quite a detailed series – each episode of the series covers a gamut of information on the Kashmir problem – from Kashmir’s ruler Maharaja Hari Singh’s accession to India, to the reasons behind the genesis of the dispute with Pakistan, to how the UN stepped into the picture, and how militant organisations such as the Jammu And Kashmir Liberation Front, Hurriyat, etc came into being.
We might have read or heard the information before. But The Kashmir Files: Unreported delivers it in an easy-to-understand manner, simplified and shortened to includes the salient points. Of course, the entire discourse is one-sided, coming from the mouth of the makers themselves, and from well-known Kashmiri Pandits such as TV9 editor Aditya Raj Kaul; Army veteran and president of All India Kashmiri Samaj, Col Tej Tikoo; co-founder of Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora, Rakesh Kumar Kaul, among others.
Though difficult to move past the fact that the series is quite biased towards the perspective of the Kashmiri Pandits, it does make one wonder about the genesis of the conflict, and sparks an interest to find out more about it, but from neutral unbiased sources.
One good thing about The Kashmir Files: Unreported is that it has none of the cacophonous jingoism of the film before it. Vivek Agnihotri and Pallavi Joshi manage to convey the gist of the content in a calm, restrained and balanced way, with none of the loud histrionics that marked The Kashmir Files movie. Another thing that is commendable about The Kashmir Files: Unreported is the amount of research and effort that the makers have clearly put into churning out this series.
All in all, The Kashmir Files: Unreported is a vast improvement over the distinctly polarising movie that came before it. There’s very little in the series that neutral viewers should take offense to, unlike The Kashmir Files movie, which had the liberals and wokes up in arms against what they labeled as propaganda and an agenda-driven film.
Instead, The Kashmir Files: Unreported urges curious and interested viewers to read up and research more on the topic, to gain further insights into it, and get an unbiased perspective on the Kashmir issue. It is quite fast-paced, well-made and watchable too, though clearly one-sided.
Music and Other Departments?
Swapnil Bandodkar and Vikram Bam’s background music is suitably baleful and melancholic. The end credit track is particularly haunting and affecting. It is sung by Noor Mohammed and put to music by Swapnil Bandodkar.
Attar Singh Saini, Subhransu Das and Rajan Maharajan’s cinematography is stark and arresting. Shankh Rajyadhyaksha’s editing is fluid and efficient.
Highlights?
Reasonably well-made and researched
Doesn’t resort to histrionics or jingoism to make its point
Paced well
Drawbacks?
Biased and one-sided account
Did I Enjoy It?
I found it reasonably good
Will You Recommend It?
Yes, just to get one side of the perspective into the lingering Kashmir issue
The Kashmir Files Unreported Series Review by Binged Bureau
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