Anurag Kashyap slams Indian PM Modi on Kashmir Article 370 decision

Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap has hit out at the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the decision to scrap Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashyap said that he did not know whether scrapping Article 370 was right or wrong, but that the manner in which it was done was wrong.

A brave move by an Indian national, as we get to hear most of the Bollywood celebrities citing their voices in favour of the scraping of the Article 370.

In a tweet which was directed at the Prime Minister, Kashyap wrote that it is “scary” to see “One Man” thinking he “knows what is right for the benefit of 1,200,000,000 people”.

Sharp reactions as India move to revoke occupied Kashmir’s special status

“You know what is scary, that One Man thinks that he knows exactly what’s the right thing to do for the benefit of 1,200,000,000 people and has the access to the power to execute it”, Indian filmmaker wrote in his tweet.

Gangs of Wasseypur director, who is mostly vocal about issues in the country and politics, went on to criticise the move lead by BJP Govt. saying, “Article 370 or 35A, I cannot speak much on them. Their implication, history or facts – I still haven’t understood them. At times it feels it should have been scrapped, at times it feels why was it scrapped. Neither am I a Kashmiri Muslim, nor am I a Kashmiri Pandit. My Kashmiri friend tells me that the story of Kashmir is like Rashomon”.

Anurag Kashyap went on to detail the reference to Rashomon in his next tweet. He said, “There are several aspects to Kashmir. All of them are correct, all of them are wrong. All I know is that the way all of this happened, is not correct”.

Rashomon is the legendary film by Akira Kurosawa, which deals with the same story, that of the rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband, from various viewpoints – “all of whom are correct and all of whom are wrong”.

Each version of the story serves the storyteller’s interest. The plot device involving these contrasting points of view, where you are left trying to figure out who to believe, is what made Rashomon a film that filmmakers have borrowed from since its release.

The decision of the government was met with severe criticism and many have slammed the way the entire process took place. Though, citing his voice in favour of Kashmiris, Indian filmmaker is facing a severe backlash over the social media by Indian nationalists.