The Unforgettable Plight: Bollywood's Wilful Amnesia Towards Kashmiri Pandits

Abstract

The delineation of Kashmiri Pandits in Bollywood cinema has been a subject of both intrigue and controversy. Bollywood has always been apathetic towards the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. To understand the significance of Bollywood's portrayal of Kashmiri Pandits, it is crucial to grasp the historical context. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a wave of violent insurgency swept through the Kashmir Valley, leading to the displacement of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits. The paper will make an attempt to show how Bollywood has been extremely apathetic to the trauma and suffering of the Kashmiri Pandits, reflecting the bias and political agenda in not portraying the Multiple Exoduses of the Kashmiri Pandits at different points in time. The paper will compare different cinematic works revolving around the primary theme of Kashmir. The paper also attempts to analyse how most of the Bollywood movies centre around the other issues of Kashmir like insurgency and terrorism, and how they have deliberately blindfolded themselves towards the cause of the Kashmir Pandits.