Documentary explores meaning of freedom in Kashmir

Juliana Kiyan Senior Editor

Vassar will host a screening of the controversial documentary Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom) on Sept. 26.

The film, which has been in production for over two years, was written and directed by Sanjay Kak. Kak is an independent documentary filmmaker whose recent films include Words on Water (2003), about the anti-dam movement in the Narmada Valley in Central India, and In the forest hangs a bridge (1999), which won the Golden Lotus Award for Best Documentary Film at the 1999 National Film Awards in India.

The feature-length documentary explores the implications of the struggle for azadi (freedom) in the Indian-administered Kashmir region, which is predominately Muslim. The violent conflict between insurgents and the Indian army that began in 1989 continues today; Reuters reported that human rights activists put the current toll at about 60,000 dead and missing.

India blames its neighbor, Pakistan, for aiding and arming the insurgents. Pakistan denies the charge and does not recognize India’s claim to Kashmir. Kashmir has been a center of strife since the British partition of India and Pakistan 60 years ago on Aug. 15. “Here are two countries, two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, at each other’s throat. Because of Kashmir,” said Professor of English Amitava Kumar.

Kumar watched Jashn-e-Azadi in Dehli, India over the summer and wrote about it on his blog, amitavakumar.blogsome.com. Having seen his blog, Kak asked Kumar if he would be interested in screening the film at Vassar. Kumar was able to gain the support of some of his colleagues to bring the film here. The screening is sponsored by the Asian Studies, Political Science and English Departments, as well as the Dean’s Office.

Its release this year coincides with the 60th anniversary of the British partition of Pakistan and India. On the film’s blog (kashmirfilm.wordpress.com), Kak wrote, “This provocative and quietly disturbing new film raises questions about freedom in Kashmir, and about the degrees of freedom in India.” Kak created the blog to serve as an “open forum” for visitors to comment on the film, Kashmir, and “azadi itself.”

“What are the conditions of the people there? I wanted to understand that, and this film does help us understand that better,” said Kumar.

The film approaches the present-day situation in Kashmir from several perspectives. According to the synopsis on his blog, Kak follows men surveying the dead in mountain villages, patients and psychiatrists in a government psychiatric hospital in Srinagar, folk performers and a father in the “Martyr’s Graveyard.” Kumar said Kak allows “people to tell their stories.”

Kak also utilizes different media of communication to propel the story, including poetry. “[Kak] has a very lovely quality of using a lyrical, oblique poetry,” said Kumar. “I was struck that in a land that has often appeared to me devastated, he’s able to find color and beauty and poetry.”

Kumar noted that Kak does not claim to be objective in his documentary. “The filmmaker has said that it is not his job to show everyone’s plight. He wants to portray a condition that in his mind has not been adequately addressed—the contemporary conditions of the nature of occupation,” said Kumar.
Kumar said that criticism has largely arisen over the film’s omission of the conditions of Hindus who have had to migrate from the valley. On the film’s blog, for example, one person posted in August, “How can you talk of violence in Kashmir, without talking in as much detail about half-a-million populace impacted by the violence perpetrated by the Jehadi machinery?”

Vassar is just one stop for the film. From Sept. 18 to Oct. 2, Kak is screening Jashn-e-Azadi at universities and colleges across the country, including University of Minnesota, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania and University of Texas, Austin.

Kumar encourages members of the Vassar community—especially students—to attend the screening for two reasons. “An average Vassar student is a political animal,” said Kumar. “But what does it mean to talk politics, to show politics? This film, speaking primarily aesthetically, would engage people in the drama of protest. What angles do you take to approach the representation of violence?”

The second is to raise a sense of international awareness. “People should know about global conflict,” said Kumar. “People should know about theaters of war. People should know about a place that is very much like Iraq, a place of occupation. That is the most dominant geopolitical reality facing America at the moment.”

The screening of Jashn-e-Azadi will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. in Sanders Auditorium.