Film Review of Saffron Kingdom

Well, I watched it twice with you and once with Sister Kiki.

It was a really emotional film.

I obviously didn't know much about Kashmir, what was going on in Kashmir at all until I met you.

The only kind of knowledge I had is that, yes, they were, um, they were fighting for the freedom.

There's no way, uh, that I expected it to be this bad.

Watching the film, you know, you kind of put yourself in, in their situation.

It was really emotional how they had to flee.

The, the, the s- the father kind of getting dragged out, out of his house in front of his child and wife, and then they're having to live with that trauma.

The boy, he's a teenager, 14, 15 year old, having to wet his bed from, from the traumatic experience he's had.

So yeah, it was, it was very, very emotional story.

I guess this is what most people there have to live with day to day, right?

Yeah, and it, and it's very well hidden.

But I was just interested in something quickly, Sami, because obviously you know that there was a bit of Hindutva propaganda affecting Bangladesh last year, right? Or the year before.

Yes.

Yeah.

When all that political stuff started, yeah.

Yeah.

So we both, and of course Kiki will understand it as well, being Pakistani, we all have been subjected to the Hindutva BJP propaganda.

Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, your take on this, this really extremist Hindu propaganda that seeks to demonize Muslims, Pakistan, Bangladeshi Muslims?

Well, it's, it's basically what's happening all around all over the world with Muslims really, isn't it? It's just, it's just same like what Zionists are doing, um, to Palestine and, uh, you know, the pr- what the propaganda is like with them trying to hide what's going on there.

Yeah, in Bangladesh, what they tried to do, what happened there is they tried to show that there was problems with Muslims and Hindus, which wasn't the case.

It was just propaganda coming from the Hindutva side in India, and it's just to basically show that Muslims are, you know, bad people, they can't live alongside, um, other religion and other people, although these people in Bangladesh are ethnically Bengali.

Exactly.

And I mean, Kiki, uh, as a Muslim and as a Pakistani, how do you think you, um, are affected and, and your people are affected by the kind of Hindutva propaganda machine?

Oh, my goodness.