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Bollywood has been capitalising on cricket frenzy for years but with its current crisis of uninspired content, it will do well to reinvent itself like the sport

- Apeksha Priyadarshini

IT’S the year 1990. On a snow-laden pitch in Kashmir, a few boys play cricket with a single bat. India and Pakistan are at loggerheads in a cricket match being broadcast on a radio nearby. A couple of young men warm their hands bya fire as they animatedly debate Sachin Tendulkar’s competence. “Tendulkar does a full-toss! It’s a six!” exclaims the radio commentator. Shiva, one of the little boys, starts yelling Sachin’s name in excitement. The young men look over as ‘Abdul, Shiva’s friend, rushes to stop him. “Don’t shout his name,” he says. “But why?” Shiva asks. “Look over there. It'll be a problem,” Abdul warns, as another boy begins to tackle Shiva. The young men come over, shouting, “That Indian dog will hit a six? Let's teach this boy a lesson!” They start assaulting Shiva, and one of them yells, “Say ‘Long Live Pakistan! Go on!” As Shiva gets beaten up, Abdul throws fistfuls of snow at the men and manages to pull Shiva. “Run, Shiva!” he says, as the two boys escape from the men.

The arrests of Kashmiris and Muslims for cheering Pakistan in Indo-Pak matches have become a troublingly commonplace affair in the past few years. During the 2023 Cricket World Cup, when India lost the final match, seven Kashmiri students were booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for celebrating India’s loss. It would, therefore, seem curious that a Hindi film should open witha scene, where a boy is assaulted for cheering an Indian player in a match—an occurrence divorced from reality. But when it is Vivek Agnihotri’s 2022 film The Kashmir Files, the decision doesn’t seem as surprising, Rather, it comes across as a well-designed inversion of facts and the cricket match, a remarkably intelligent choice to set the tone for what is to follow. Agnihotri knows well the value with which a game of cricket in India is imbued and how it can be used to rile up volatile sentiments in favour of propaganda.