PM Modi raises Gandhi to speak of Kashmir Files. Why was Gandhi banned in Pakistan though?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi minced no words when he spoke about an uneasiness among a section of people over the truth of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits shown in the movie The Kashmir Files. While addressing BJP’s Parliamentary meeting, the PM said, ”A constant effort is being made to discredit the movie [The Kashmir Files] instead of discussing the merits of it based on reasoning.”

PM Modi said that the issue wasn't not discussing the movie, but that efforts were made to suppress the truth.

इन दिनों #TheKashmirFiles फिल्म की चर्चा हो रही है,जो लोग 'freedom of expression' के झंडे लेकर घूमते हैं, वो बौखलाए हुए हैं।एक पूरे इकोसिस्टम द्वारा षड्यंत्र चलाया जा रहा है।जो सत्य है उसको सही स्वरूप में देश के सामने लाना, देश की भलाई के लिए होता है।- पीएम @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/nWgq0R9riI

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 15, 2022

PM Modi, during his speech, also made a mention of the Richard Attenborough-directed movie Gandhi. The PM said that the world talked about Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, but not about Gandhi back then.

”The world rarely mentions Gandhi. Had anyone portrayed the life of Gandhi [on film] back then, maybe we would have been able to spread his message,” said PM Modi. He said that it was only when an English filmmaker made a movie on Gandhi and the movie won several awards that the world came to know of a figure called Gandhi.

But what was the movie about? 

GANDHI, THE MOVIE

Late English filmmaker Richard Attenborough made a period biographical movie  Gandhi in 1982. The movie won eight Oscars then and received 11 nominations. Ben Kinsley, who played Mahatma Gandhi in the movie, won the Best Actor award. Besides this, the movie also won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography awards.

The movie didn’t only fetch national but international positive reviews also. It was reviewed in Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Public Historian, Cross Currents, The Journal of Asian Studies, Film Quarterly, etc.

But in Pakistan, the movie was banned.

WHY WAS THE MOVIE BANNED IN PAKISTAN?

A historical depiction of a personality is bound to get mixed reactions from viewers. The same happened with Gandhi (1982) in Pakistan. It angered the whole community on several issues. A negative portrayal of Pakistan's founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah, distortion of history and of Gandhi’s image were some reasons why it faced a huge backlash.

Here are some reasons why Gandhi the movie was banned in Pakistan.

WORSHIPPING OF GANDHI

That Gandhi single-handedly led the independence of India was never how Pakistanis perceived 1947. For them, the liberation and creation of the separate state of Pakistan was a gift bestowed to them by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The movie Gandhi showed the opposite of this.

Instead, it shows him in negative light, as someone who led to the division of the country, someone who instigated Muslims and a haughty personality who was always ignorant of the ground reality.

For many Pakistanis, Gandhi was not less than an inimical leader who crossed paths with their Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah. Stanley Wolpert in his book Jinnah, writes about Gandhi telling Jinnah, “You have mesmerised the Muslims”, with Jinnah shooting back, “You have hypnotised the Hindus”. What the movie showed was Gandhi as a heroic figure and Jinnah as not quite.

A large section of the Pakistani audience perceived it as whitewashing of Gandhi's image; one of the biggest reasons why they disliked it.

DEMONISING JINNAH

The director Richard Attenborough made efforts to show Jinnah in a negative light in the movie. For example, there’s a scene where Gandhi urges to make Jinnah the Prime Minister of Independent India with Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Lal Bahadur Shastri watching it.

The scene portrays Jinnah as a dominating personality, with Gandhi being subservient to his wild ambitions and eventually sacrificing the aspirations of his own partymen.

But for Pakistan, Jinnah is not less than a sacred personality who fought for them even in his last days when his ailing health and worsening bronchitis didn’t deter him from going for an independent state for Muslims.

The villainisation of Jinnah in the movie was something Pakistani cinemas couldn’t afford to show.

NO ROLE OF JINNAH IN INDEPENDENCE

Apart from his negative portrayal, the movie doesn’t show the efforts of the English barrister in securing independence of a country from British rule. Though Gandhi and Jinnah’s methods were different, with the former inclining more towards non-violence, non-cooperation movements; Jinnah was more towards working under the legal bars set by the British government.

The film fails to show Jinnah as someone who ever wanted the country free. And the resentment is genuine. Jinnah championed Hindu-Muslim unity in his early days and only after 1940, became resistant to the idea of an Independent India which included both Muslims and Hindus. Jinnah had his own reservations with Gandhi and the Congress, and thereby both decided to walk away.

GANDHI, JINNAH AND KALAM

The relationship between Gandhi and Jinnah in the last years did grow tumultuous. Their goals were the same but their paths different. Not only Gandhi, Jinnah had a special disdain for Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who Jinnah called a mere showbow of the Congress. At the meetings, the London barrister would not even shake hands with Maulana.  

When the movie Gandhi tried to completely whitewash the image of Gandhi and even Azad, it was bound to invite the wrath of the Pakistani audience. The relationship between Jinnah with several of his political counterparts were glossed over, and only a negative image of Jinnah was put out in front of the audience. There were several layers behind the personality of Jinnah which the movie didn’t show. Hence, the movie was banned in Pakistan.