on making Jashn-e-Azadi: an essay in pratilipi

The online bilingual literary magazine Pratilipi, has quietly built an exceptional reputation  for its quality, the regularity of its bimonthly appearance, and the fact that it is genuinely bilingual, carrying excellent translations of all articles, in English and Hindi.

Readers of this blog may enjoy reading a series of essays on the Indian documentary, commissioned by Guest Editor Sridala Swami, with reflective pieces by filmmakers Paromita Vohra, Surabhi Sharma, and Kavita Joshi. In the December 2008 issue I have written an account of the making of Jashn-e-Azadi. Enjoy!

blogflash: screening report in the “Rising Kashmir”

A young student at Delhi University has written a report of a recent screening of the film at Ramjas College. It was published in the Rising Kashmir a new English language daily from Srinagar, Kashmir.

For the net lazy, we’re pasting it below too.

Jashn-e-Azadi: A screening

Jashn-e-Azadi is a film made by noted film-maker Sanjay Kak. The film has triggered off a heated debate at all its screening-spots, whether in India or abroad, so far. Suvaid Yaseen captures the description of screening at Ramjas College, New Delhi

After planning and re-planning for quite a few months. Finally, the film screening was finalized. Somebody called the Principal in the morning. He asked for the film screening to be stopped as it would hurt some people’s ‘dharmic bhavnaayein’ (religious sentiments). The request, not so humble, was refused.
So, it started at the proposed time with around twenty-five people in the seminar room of Ramjas College. The number was good enough considering it was March as exams in DU are too close and students prefer to complete their assignments than watch a documentary film on some ‘Jashn’ of some ‘Azadi’ somewhere. No prizes for guesses now. The film to be shown, of course, was Jashn-e-Azadi. A film, impossible to ignore, even though people have had varied opinions from one extreme to the other extreme.
Two hours and ten minutes. Entirely new perspective for most in the audience. Shocking, disturbing like never before. Face to face with a reality unseen, unheard, unexpected till the play-button set the disc rolling. No surprises that many were clearly uncomfortable with what they were exposed to. Used to ‘we are the good guys and they are the bad guys cliché’. The film reached its end

Question time:
“Thanks for the bold perspective, the film puts forward.” a lady remarked.
Then the inevitable and oft-repeated question.
“Isn’t the film biased towards the Indian army?”
“Not at all…” was the firm answer from Sanjay Kak, the director of the film.
From being accused of being a Muslim (secretly), to a shame for Kashmiri pundits and the like, he has seen it all. He has been answering questions of all kinds ever since he started making the film. Quite experienced now, I guess. “I am not showing you the army killing, torturing and raping. I have just shown their mere presence and the after effects of violence which people face.” Well reasoned. If just showing of the army on screen seems biased, what would it be like amidst them? The question remained open for those who care to think, even if little and for just a while.

Then what followed was shocking, disturbing and irritating for those who know the ‘other side’ of the story. Kashmiris. A tragedy, anywhere, everywhere. A Kashmiri guy, who has studied outside the Valley from sixth class, at least, and now doing his business in Delhi only, spoke. The view was that Kashmiris are completely responsible for their miseries. The militants were all supported from outside. All were interested in moneymaking. (Later it turned out that somebody had taken money from his father at gunpoint so he had been nursing a grudge against the militant movement. Granted to an extent. But aren’t there black sheep everywhere around us? Is it a reason enough to malign the whole movement? No. Not at all. It’s myopic.)

So, again Sanjay presented the arguments. “The average life of a militant in J&K, who has taken up arms against the Indian state, is not more than one or one and a half years. Picking up the gun in the Valley is like signing one’s death warrant. The army presence is massive and overwhelming. To be a militant in Iraq is easier than in Kashmir. For less than a thousand (as claimed by the Indian govt.) at present there are at least seven lakh armed forces. Even then if you think that moneymaking is the sole objective of all fighters, you need to correct your understanding. Why do you think those people come out in such large numbers on the funerals of martyrs? Women wailing and beating their chests. People shouting slogans.”
“Couldn’t it be due to the fear factor?” asked a newly appointed teacher.
“Very possible that people come out due to the threat of militants. But how can you make them feign emotions? How can you make women cry by force? Passion cannot be generated artificially. People can’t be coerced into it. It’s so only when those killed are martyrs of just cause for the population.”

Questions, counter questions, answers. All continued for a while. Some very important issues were raised and discussed. The control of army over the people’s lives in the villages of Kashmir. The majority of Kashmiri people reside therein and it’s the villages of Kashmir where you can see the raw emotions against the occupation. Humiliation, torture, gazes. The interference in the village affairs is too much to bear. Peoples’ movement both to and from the villages is closely watched.

Hulk sits on the chest of the poor guy halting his breath, choking, suffocating him. Former India, latter Kashmir. That was the analogy given in response to a question on the future and alternatives provided by the call of Independent Kashmir. Azadi. You make normal life an unaffordable luxury for an entire nation unleashing a reign of state terror, torture and murder. And then you question the pros and cons of the movement and expect it to be hundred percent progressive, modern, non-violent and feminist. Plus you are the sole judge to give a decision after deciding what those terms mean and the compatibility of contesting replies to those definitions. Asking too much. Ain’t it?

Discussion over, the Speaker-Director and the audience both were thanked for coming. People who watched the film left. Thinking, pondering. Most disturbed, uncomfortable. Truth does disturb. More so, when it is unpleasant and related to you somehow.

For those who haven’t yet seen the film, some genuine advice. Must-Watch-it. It’s great.

[ comment: sanjay kak ]

In less than five months Jashn-e-Azadi has criss-crossed the country in a series of previews for small, focused groups: film-makers, media-activists, the press, academics, and most importantly, students. This blog has tried to share the excitement of the screenings, and always drawn attention to the quite serious reactions to it, from audiences, in the press, and here on the net.

So after more than a dozen previews (and one excellent public screening at a film festival in New Delhi) the incidents of last week, when the Mumbai Police clumsily stepped in to stop two of our screenings, came as something of a shock. I know it should not have been. From the very first screening (in fact even before the very first preview) a small group of people had made it their mission to follow the film around and appear to stop it from circulating. (Appear to, because they too know that they cannot actually stop the film, but they do know that there is mileage to be got from appearing to stop it).

Initially this took the form of vituperative flaming on the net, a space that has unfortunately become the happy hunting ground of every sort of extreme bully. These net-warriors (net-bullies, really) are living out a sort of fantasy life on the web, able to say what they want about the film, abuse, propagate falsehoods, lie, whatever. And all the time imagine that what they are doing is some form of activism. Unfortunately this can only work when no one has seen the film. With every preview (and press report) on the film, more and more people are making up their own minds about Jashn-e-Azadi.

As a film-maker, I don’t claim that everyone who has seen the film loves it, or agrees with it completely, or clutches it’s arguments to their bosom and stops thinking beyond it. Because that would be a failure for the film. My Editor, Tarun Bhartiya, and I have often spoken about this during the long process of editing. We didn’t want to end up with a film that people liked: it was much more important for us to share our sense of disturbance. Indeed we would only begin to register our success when people were troubled by it, argued with it, but were at least pushed to break the horrible silence in Indian public life on Kashmir.

In Mumbai, a few journalists asked me why Kashmiri Pandits were “against” the film, since that was what they had been given to believe. This I refuse to accept: of the many Kashmiri Pandits who have seen the film, many have been disturbed by the film, not at the film; they have been troubled by it’s arguments, not by it’s makers. Simply because a small bunch of people, the net-bullies, have decided to make political capital out of opposing the film, grandstanding for the sake of their own narrow interests, does not mean we should accede to them the entire swathe of what we can call “Kashmiri Pandit” opinion. I have spoken to enough Pandits who think otherwise after watching the film.

One small example of this dissembling: from our first preview in Delhi in March, there have been these fantasies that we had invited Yasin Malik to be the Chief Guest at the preview; that since he figures in the verite footage of the film, he was somehow the “hero” of the film. (I wonder why they didn’t instead think of one of the young Army Officers in the film as the ”hero” of  the film; or why the Pyschiatrist in the film doesn’t qualify; or indeed the civil society people who are conducting a survey of the dead?) That the film was in some mysterious way “linked” to Yasin Malik. Most ingeniously that the JKLF’s recent campaign in rural Kashmir was called Safar-e-Azadi; this film was called Jashn-e-Azadi. Ergo, they must have a common “source”! And since they feel Yasin Malik is a “terrorist and a mass murderer” this film was clearly sympathetic to “terrorism”. Quite neat isn’t it, the way it ties up for our net-detectives?

Yasin Malik came to the screening of Jashn-e-Azadi like 300 other people in Delhi: he heard of the screening, he called to check, he arrived on time at the hall, he collected an entry pass, and he sat and watched the film. He did not, like our net-warriors, arrive late, arrive with placards condemning the film, (even before they had seen the film) and since the hall was full and the security were not keen on letting protesters into the hall, turn this into yet another example of how Kashmiri Pandits were being discriminated against. (Sometimes I feel like redirecting the energies of this bunch to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has also met with Mr Malik. “Terrorist and a mass murderer”, whatever!)

The new fantasy is that since the film is not the what they want it to be, it is sympathetic to “terrorists”. Simple isn’t it? Can’t argue with something, give it a label that will attract the attention of the ever-zealous security apparatus, then keep repeating it till some of it appears to stick. No argument to offer about the brutal dispossession of the rural poor in Chattisgarh? Call the civil-rights people “naxalites”. No argument to offer about the politics of what is happening in Kashmir? Call the film-makers “anti-national”.

All this would be inconsequential, and indeed laughable, if the Mumbai Police had not pitched in to help carry out their mandate. At our first preview at the Bhupesh Gupta Bhawan, Mumbai, we had 40 people gathered on the 2nd floor of a private building. Downstairs was the Dy Commissioner of Police, the Incharge, Dadar Police Station, two sub-inspectors and two constables in uniform, five plain-clothes intelligence men, and one woman constable: 12 members of the Mumbai Police. At our second preview at Prithvi House, Juhu, the local Police Station had sent in a written letter telling the management to desist from showing the film. Or else be prepared to face the consequences. Heavy artillery for a confrontation that simply didn’t happen.

When this blog was set up March 2007, in the last weeks of finishing Jashn-e-Azadi, we needed a short and pithy way to describe it. More out of instinct than reason, I described it as a new film that “raises questions about freedom in Kashmir, and about the degrees of freedom in India.” The events of last week make that casually written sentence seem almost prophetic.

[ blog trivia 1- search terms]

Just curious what those searching for the highlighted terms make of the site ?
What happens to you if you are looking for ‘hot anus’ and you arrive at our keyword ‘interrogation‘. Or a search for ‘hindi poems on azadi’ offers you ‘slogans of kashmiri freedom‘? Do you curse the web or allow yourself to be surprised?
A recent sample:

2007-07-02: film & flashes institute pune / e dainik bhaskar
2007-06-30: inder salim / collage on kashmir / vidhi upadhyay / amit bhan sound of silence / lightstalker flash slideshow / kashmir songs about freedom
2007-06-29: patricia mukhim / hindi filmi poet / Indian Independence Day 60th Anniversary / kashmir uzma / hot anus
2007-06-28: hindi poems on azadi / indian army do u have it in you / habba kadal / kashmir what does it mean / the untold tragedy
2007-06-27: jashn / lepeska / kashmir uzma

The Hyperworlds of Hypertexts are curious places to dwell in…

[ blog flash 9 : Nashik ]

“D for Documentary” is a relatively recent effort to regularly screen documentaries in Nashik city, initiated by our old and indefatigable friends, Abhivyakti Media for Development. Taking advantage of the Pune screening the previous day, a break-neck bus ride (accompanied by the relentless idiocy of the soundtrack of the Hindi film Bhagam-Bhag on the mandatory video screen) led Jashn-e-Azadi to a preview hosted by Abhivyakti on June 13th, 2007, at the very compact and well-made Municipal Hall named after the great musician Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar in central Nashik. Advance notice of the screening had been carried in some of the local Marathi papers, and a film about the idea of Azadi in Kashmir, should surely have attracted some critical attention in a city with a strong Shiv Sena presence…

One gratifying general observation: most people who are not regular documentary viewers, and who turn up for a screening of Jashn-e-Azadi, are taken aback by the idea of a documentary that runs to 2 hours and 19 minutes. But like has been the case elsewhere in our previews, the Nashik audience too stayed, and to the end, and many stayed for the Q&A as well. At least two people in the audience who identified themselves as RSS people, asked the usual questions about the “genocide of Kashmiri Pandits” and the “Islamic terrorism” in the valley. To their credit, the answers they received seemed to genuinely surprise them. (The fact that there are at least 4000 Kashmiri pandits still living and working with reasonable dignity in Kashmir; the fact that whatever the labels they may carry, the armed militants do draw emotional and sentimental – if not material – support in the Kashmir valley, even today.) Even if viewing the film may not have transformed their views on Kashmir completely, or even substantially, our friends from the RSS did seem a little puzzled…

Most gratifying was the tremendous response to the poetry in the film, and one gentleman who was very keen to know how quickly we could come up with a Hindi version of the film, admitted that translating the Kashmiri poems of Zarif Ahmed ‘Zarif’ and Pyare ‘Hatash’ would be an intimidating task.

[ blog flash 8 : Pune ]

Jashn-e-Azadi had a very good screening in Pune on June 12th, at the beautiful auditorium of the National Film Archives of India: large screen projection, excellent sound, technically a delight. The screening was part of the Film & Television Institute of India’s (FTII) annual Film Appreciation Course, so we had an audience of those attending the FA course, as well as the Punekars who regularly show up for the NFAI screenings. (The FA course at FTII is a unique institution, held every year for almost 35 years, and has without doubt helped hone a generation of serious film buffs in India. Probably in acknowledgement of the growing vitality of documentary film production in India, the FA course has recently begun to screen documentaries, and invite documentary film-makers to share their work at the course. This year there were at least four, perhaps a good sign for the documentary film?)

Predictably, there were more questions about the form of the film than Jashn-e- Azadi has met at previous previews. About the way the sound-track is structured, about the process of “scripting” such a film, and so on. But reassuringly, Kashmir, and the questions that the film raises about what is happening there, dominated the Q&A session that followed. There was, of course, the by-now mandatory query if the film was “anti-national” and why “the unsung heroes” of Kashmir (the Indian Army, it seems) had not been given adequate credit. But increasingly these questions seem to be raised in reflex, and quite weakly, as if they must be placed on the record. For the rest, audiences here too seemed to be able to take on the bigger political questions that Kashmir raises, and are able to think about it with a lack of prejudice that our mass-media in particular seem to have difficulty with.

[ blog flash 7 - guwahati surreal ]

if the surreal is the criterion, guwahati would be memorable. Bar of Hotel Blue Moon converted into screening chamber. The screen which was showing music videos had Kashmir replace them. But that was it- a surreal location with not much publicity resulting in a small crowd and tepid discussion. It was sad because, guwahati has a very astute political culture and a whole conflict resolution industry in overdrive with peace talks between United Liberation Front of Axom and India going through the usual process of – non talk, army punctuation, mysterious bomb blasts. Sad, real sad this non screening. Guwahati, we will be back.

[ blog flash 6 - shillong ]

blogmistri will be biased- he is from shillong.

the mysterious screening journey of the film continues. technically, the first preview of the film should have been at Gorakhpur, but hindu right intervened in the city with their favourite festival- riot and to our unhappiness-delhiwallahs got the first official taste of the film not the gorakhpuris. then the film travelled to Srinagar’s truly inspirational screening followed by an exciting and very political screening at Patna- and then Shillong on saturday, 26th May 2007, 3pm.

Shillong- capital of Meghalaya-56 kms north of Cherrapunjee (wettest place on earth) is known more for its hill station charm than its cultural/political life. as in all places cursed with the discourse of tourism – Shillongites struggle between the cunning despair of tourist guide and the banal excitements of everyday life. alt-space of the freedom project which hosted the film, is one of those groups which in a very small town way has been trying to create critical/dissenting spaces through films, music, conversations, politics, etc. They were thrown out of the small place they had been functioning from, and thus had hired the 108 year old Assam Club, opposite the old Presbyterian Church in Laban,with wooden floors and colonial charm for the screening.

Apart from the fact that we had a full house (around 130 people), thanks to Julius Basaiawmoit – an SRFTII graduate- great sound too. For the first time outside the studio setting, we could enjoy the elaborate sound design of Madhu Apsara.

Although Shillong screening was blogmistri/editor’s way of telling his town folk his reason for his regular vanishing acts to Delhi, people chose to read deep political significance in the choice of location. Their reading was to do with the usual discomfort which the societies of ‘North east’ India feel with the idea/geography of India. Historically most of the states/communities which reside here, have one time or the other challenged the territorial integrity of India. It was not that we were not aware of this connection, but we wanted to go beyond the facile similarity into the specificities of various different nationality movements. The profile of the audience was mixed- students, activists, relatives, academics… the usual. Questions- pandits, violence, islamicism, form, etc. One thing which is becoming quite exciting for us is the reaction of the ‘progressive/secular/liberal’ crowd to the religious tonality of the Azadi Movement in Kashmir. From an initial discomfort- the conversation moves on to the false dichotomies between religion/secular which the liberal discourse draws out.

Some of the reactions which we would classify as NGO/Conflict resolution industry type which blights any place where movements challenging the idea of India exists, is best exemplified by this piece which appeared in the North East Telegraph two days after the Shillong screening . Reactions of this type try to dehistoricise and reduce any struggle to a ‘conflict’ and attempts to manage and control the ‘conflict’ on behalf of the state. So the usual questions about the Peace Process, Human cost of the conflict etc.

But then an engagement which made the screening come alive for us was this short poem by Robin S Ngangom, sent to us via sms few hours after the screening.

[ blog connection 2 - wasim bhat ]

here is something on mystic poets of Kashmir by Wasim Bhat. it would have been a disservice to let it go just as a comment:

Alamdaar, the Standard Bearer-I

by Wasim Bhat

Salar Sanz lived in a time that is somewhere after the 1320 just after the marauding hordes of Zulchu the Mongol, had sacked the region. Salar was a person with a mystical bent of mind, his ancestors had settled in the Kashmir Valley after migrating from the outlying area of Kishtwar. The turning point in Salar Sanz’s life came when he met Hazrat Mir Syed Hussein Simnani, a renowned mystic who lived in Kulgam in south Kashmir. Salar Sanz spent a time with the mystic and eventually accepted Islam at his hands. Henceforth he was called Sheikh Salar u Din. In some years Salar u Din was married to a lady called Sodar and they lived at Kaimuh in Kashmir.

It was here that a son was born to them, he was called Noor u Din, the birth and the subsequent events after the birth of Noor u Din are wrapped in layers of legend. The legend goes that Noor u Din after he was born would not suckle at his mother’s breast. At this his parents were completely distraught thinking that if this continued their son would die of starvation. As if to answer their prayers Lalladed who was a renowned Shaivaite mystic of those times appeared at their door and took Nund, for this is how he was affectionately called, in her lap and suckled him and the infant who had refused for so long to suckle started to do so eagerly and hungrily.

This veracity of this incident is shrouded in legend but numerous historical sources attest to this and it finds a mention in many writings of the time and as well subsequent writings. The point however to note is that through this incident a spiritual event and a lineage is established which Noor u Din extolled repeatedly when he became older. In one of his shruks he says, [1]

Tas Padmanpore chay Lallay

She, the Lalla of Padmanpore,
Drunk the nectar long and deep,
And beheld Shiva with a bewildered eye,
Lord! Grant me the same demeanour.

This intimation of a spiritual lineage is a constant in the life and the poetry of Noor u Din. The pivot of spiritual and the mystical universe is the spiritual master without whom the effort spiritual efforts are futile and likely to go awry………

At the age of thirteen Noor u Din married Zaided, they had two children a girl who was named Zoonded and a boy Baba Haider. Apparently Noor u Din was leading a happy marital life but underneath the surface there was a simmering spiritual discontent. Noor u Din yearned to satiate his spiritual yearnings and at twenty he left home and started to live in cave in Kaimuh. He abandoned his family and children. His family was distraught at his action; sources relate that in an attempt to persuade him to come back home to his family his two children were one evening brought to the cave and left there. They were found dead the next morning.

This incident is a formative and critical one which symbolizes the break with the materials world and its concerns for Noor u Din. Now there is nothing that ties him, he is unfettered of the shackles that bind ordinary mortals.

Sources relate another dramatic event that happens around this time that reemphasizes Noor u Din break from worldly ties. This event contains within itself one of the earliest miracles attributed to him. This event is something that Noor u Din himself preserves in one of his shruks. It relates that his mother implores him to return to his family and claims her milk back on which he had suckled if he does not do so. It is related that he calls his mother and mildly reprimands her for her insistence and finally asks her to fetch a pot, he strikes a rock with his staff and milk gushes forth from the rock, he then asks his mother to collect the milk thus freeing himself of this maternal claim. The event again serves to achieve a breaking free, a rending asunder of the claims and the ties of the world that are but fetters in the path of the mystic and the spiritual traveler.

Finally Noor u Din is free of the claims that the world makes upon him to embark on his spiritual quest.

And what is the substance of this quest and what is the goal, Noor u Din himself describes the state that he seeks in his spiritual quest, a state of faqr, this state is an exaltation for the mystic, its merits are valued beyond measure, the lineage of this state is traced back to the Prophet who in the mystical discourses is the Insan i Kamil or the Perfect Man. It is related in a tradition of the Prophet that the Prophet said “al faqr u fakhri”, that the state of faqr is my pride.

The Prophet being the perfect example this state is then what the mystic strives to in all that he is and does.

Faqr chuy dozakhas warun thuro [2]

Faqr is salvation from the fire of hell,
Faqr, the Prophets observed so well,
Faqr is profit in faith, in sustenance as well,
Faqr is the sweet fragrance of the Yemberzal.

At the age of thirty six Noor u Din decided to leave the cave dwelling at Kaimuh and went on journeys across the Valley, his wanderings took him far and wide and the narratives of his journeys that have come to us through different sources relate incidents that are interspersed with his engaging encounters. A letmotif in these encounters is the engagements of Noor u Din with the Islamic and Hindu clerics of his time. What appears most in these encounters is how the clerical or organized religious establishment sees Noor u Din as a threat because he posits for himself a position that is liminal and that speaks to them from the outside and therefore is critical and in most instances as the narratives demonstrates establishes the moral superiority of the Sheikh, as he was now increasingly referred to by the population of the region.

The Sheikh established a mystic lineage or Silsila that he called the Rishi. In one of his shruks he clearly establishes himself at the final link of a mystical spiritual lineage that ultimately goes back to the Prophet. In this scheme then according to Noor u Din, Ahmad or the Prophet is the ‘Awal’ Rishi or the first Rishi and Noor u Din the seventh in line.

The Rishis of Kashmir, the disciples of the Sheikh carried forward the practices and the values of this lineage and in time the people of the region identified Kashmir so closely with the spirit of the Rishis that the seventh Rishi, Noor u Din came to be refereed as Alamdar i Kashmir, or the standard bearer of Kashmir.

Endnotes

[1] A shruk is a four lined composition in verse and usually the lines are in rhyme.

[2] Faqr is a state of piety of man towards the world and his fellow men and of austerity unto himself. It has material as well as spiritual connotations.

[ blog connection 1 - mukhtar ]

While we get our act together and post some images and comments from Shillong screenings, blogmistri suggests the following link

http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/slideshow/875