Tag: Cinema As Political Propaganda

‘Propaganda Movies Distort Facts Selectively to Suit a False Narrative’

By LokMarg

Kavindraa Sinha, a screenplay writer, editor, and an ad-film director in Mumbai, delves into the history of propaganda movies that began with World War 1 to serve the arms industry. His views:

Being a cinema student and movie professional, I believe that ‘propagandist cinema’ always has well-defined political motives or some hidden agenda that serve the stakeholders who are making such movies, because movies affect the audience emotionally. The audience is potentially vulnerable and people may tend to believe in what they watch in the movies.

In terms of decoding the genre of propaganda cinema, since the beginning of the cinema journey till today, this genre has not been very popular among the filmmakers’ tribe across the world. And, yet, we see propaganda movies being made in all era and times.

In the past, filmmakers used this genre as a cinematic tool for the war industry. This can be very clearly observed during World War 1 and 2. However, its brutal use could first be seen during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in Germany, especially during the late1920s, and the beginning of the 1940s.

Through these films, the filmmakers build a particular psyche, so as to comprehend the reality of the Nazi party in a glorified, superlative way, while the portrayal of Jews is done in an extremely dehumanizing manner. Hence, similar movies were made revolving around the themes of racism, anti-Semitism, while glorifying war and militarism. Surprisingly, some of these filmmakers also made mainstream, entertainment movies that could divert the audience’s attention from the ongoing world war.

ALSO READ: Kashmir To Kerala – The Propaganda Potpourri

You can watch many documentaries or feature films made in Germany from 1933 to 1945 which reflect this genre. Some of these movies are: Kolberg, Jud Suss, and Triumph of the Will. All these movies had a clear-cut political agenda, and this could be easily derived.

Post-1945, and during the Cold War, we have seen propaganda movies in American cinema that portrayed communism in the Soviet Union and East Europe in a very bad light, showing it as dangerous to society. You can watch such movies like Guilty of Treason, The Red Danube, The Whip Hand, among others.

Over time, the political agenda in this genre shifted to other subjects with the prime objective to create some kind of unknown fear among the people, and place the entire humanity in a state of insecurity about ‘tomorrow’. Themes of such movies are predictably — aliens, economy collapse, pandemics, etc. On the contrary, such movies are sometimes very popular and do well in the box-office. Filmmakers, who make such movies, become rich.

Hence, in simplistic terms, the propaganda genre is a cinematic tool which has the subtle purpose to exaggerate lies in such a way that all they depict looks believable and real, and, it subliminally works on the psyche of the audience so as to form or build an opinion. This is the entire objective of the filmmakers who support certain political or hidden agenda of the stakeholders, and, who want their ‘lies’ to be legitimized and endorsed as the total and final truth.

The propaganda genre used by filmmakers in the movies has a longer effect on the audience’s minds. Our audience may appear to be naive and emotional, but they are also super-smart and intelligent. In the age of social media and AI, the audience, instantly, verifies the facts shown in the movies.

From the aesthetic perspective of cinema, there is nothing substantial that is being contributed to artistic expression through this form of cinematic genre. The story-telling is based on false facts and distortion of the truth, making such films extremely shallow, neither falling in the realm of fiction or fantasy, nor reflecting any kind of real or true cinema. Since cinema is an art form, thereby, in the propaganda genre, you have lots of visual ingredients that you can analyze in the aesthetic purview. You may even enjoy such cinema, visually, sometimes.

The narrator also conducts cinematic workshops and teaches film appreciation

As told to Amit Sengupta

Govt Owes Kashmiris

‘The Kashmir Files is A Farrago of Disinformation; A Propaganda’

By LokMarg

Omair Hasan* counters the Bollywood narrative which, he argues, is an attempt to further polarize the country and a disservice to the cause of Kashmiri Pandits

I was about three year old when the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley happened. I have very little memory of the incident. But the story of their migration came in front of me in various forms. As I grew, I realized a couple of houses in my neighbourhood were always deserted. Those were the houses of Pandits who left during the 1990 violence.

I also came across many other stories of violence against them. Nobody can justify the atrocity and violence which happened on them. But weaponising those tragic incidents against Kashmiri Muslims is also not justified.

I saw The Kashmir Files and I seriously doubt the intention of the movie. It is a farrago of disinformation. A complete distortion of facts; a misrepresentation of history and a vicious propaganda.

Every incident has been presented in the movie in a way with an agenda. If we start with the death toll, 89 Kashmiri Pandits were killed in attacks since the inception of militancy in 1990, according to the government data. The movie completely evades the data on the number of killings.

There are various scenes in the movie which show the massacre but never address the number of deaths or what led to the start of killings.

ALSO READ: Kashmir Files Brings Alive Our Pain & Plight

In his book Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years, AS Dulat addresses the reason behind the start of killings. He writes that some Pandits were on the payrolls of Intelligence Bureau which he was heading. He also goes on to name some of them who were killed. This vindicates the position taken by militant groups that they were not targeting Pandits in general but had selective targets not linked to their religion but for their affiliations with Indian Intelligence.

This thus debunks and punctures the Indian state’s propaganda to shame Kashmiri resistance movement. I believe that the intention behind hiding the numbers and reason in the movie was to obfuscate people than to make them aware of the event.

Another distorted fact which has been shown in the movie is Kashmiri Pandits demanding removal of Article 370 in 1990. It is laughable. Why were Pandits demanding the removal of Article 370 then, when it also suited them as much as it suits Kashmiri Muslims?

Now let’s talk about slogans used in the movie. Slogan has always been a big part of any movement and so it has been in Kashmir. But the film shows some false slogans that was never a part of the public movement in Kashmir. The film shows Kashmiri crowd raising slogans like “Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive (convert to Islam, leave the place or perish).” This is completely false. It was never a part of the ‘Kashmir movement’ in its entire history.

According to the movie, all Kashmiri Muslims support Pakistan, including Abdullahs and Muftis. The fun fact for readers of this article is that the so-called nationalist BJP has formed many governments with these so-called Pakistani supporters both at the Centre and in Kashmir.

The movie hails the present government at the Centre as if this is the first time the BJP government has come to power since 1990. I would like to remind people that in these 32 years, the BJP government has remained in power at the Centre for 14 years. We must not forget that it also formed government in Kashmir too. In these years, how many Pandits have been resettled in Kashmir?

Injustice has happened to Pandits but we can’t do justice to them with this kind of propaganda by building anti-Kashmiri narratives. Such kind of movie will further polarise the country and anger of people will be vented out on innocent Kashmiri students who are studying in universities and colleges in different parts of the country. These students have nothing to do with things which happened when they were not even born or were very young and had no say in the politics of the state.

Whether Pandits or Muslims, I think Kashmir is the real victim here. It has been victim for many centuries and still fighting the battle.

As told to Md Tausif Alam

* Hasan declined to share his picture for safety reasons. Respecting his wish, we have used a representational picture