'For Sunanda's sake': Vivek Agnihotri, Shashi Tharoor get enmeshed in twitter war over 'The Kashmir Files' ban

The war of words over the Vivek Agnihotri’s film ‘The Kashmir Files’ appears to have no stop. A tweet by Member of Parliament from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday, 10th May, led to a fresh battle — this time between the filmmaker and the politician.

Launching an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress MP on Monday tweeted a news article and said: “Film promoted by India’s ruling party, #KashmirFiles, banned in Singapore.” The article by Singapore headquartered Channel News Asia, quoting the country’s government officials, called the film “provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims”.

In response to Shashi Tharoor’s tweet, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, in typical ‘Tharoor style’, called the Congress MP “fopdoodle” (meaning stupid) and “gnashnab” (meaning one who complains all the time), seemingly alluding to the politician’s tendency to use complicated words.

Furthermore the filmmaker said: “Singapore is most regressive censor in the world. It even banned The Last Temptations of Jesus Christ (ask your madam),” an apparent attack at Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi. “Even a romantic film called #TheLeelaHotelFiles will be banned,” Agnihotri added.

The filmmaker attached a list of 48 movies that have been banned in Singapore but commended worldwide to drive home his point. Some of the movies were rated above 8.

Agnihotri in another tweet questioned the Congress leader if the MP’s late wife Sunanda Pushkar was a Kashmiri Hindu. He shared the screenshot of a Twitter thread where she says that she is a Kashmiri but has to subdue her standpoint on the Kashmir violence of 1989-91 because her husband, Shashi Tharoor, is asked to “caution her”.

“Is this true that Late Sunanda Pushkar was a Kashmiri Hindu? Is the enclosed SS true? If yes, then in Hindu tradition, to respect the dead, you must delete your tweet and apologise to her soul,” Agnihotri tweeted.

Earlier, actor Anupam Kher had also attacked Shashi Tharoor and asked him to "show some sensitivity towards Kashmiri Pandits for Sunanda's sake".

The Kashmir Files is the story of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990, during the Kashmir insurgency. The film is made on the basis of interviews of the victims of the Kashmir genocide of the Kashmiri Pandit community. It is a story packed with pain, suffering, struggle, and trauma of Kashmiri pandits.

When The Kashmir Files first hit the movie theatres, it was a blockbuster. The film made all the right kind of noise and also broke many records at the box office.

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