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| - Fact Check: These students weren't watching 'Kashmir Files', but the BBC documentary
A photo of students watching the BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shared as a picture of people at a screening of 'The Kashmir Files'.
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India Today Fact Check
This photo shows the screening of the BBC's documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’, organised by the SFI at HCU.
Hyderabad’s premier university recently witnessed a war of screenings. Following its ban, there were calls for a nationwide screening of the controversial BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” by the Students' Federation of India. Hyderabad Central University, too, saw a screening of the documentary on its campus, and this was met with an odd form of retaliation.
On Republic Day, when the BBC documentary was screened at HCU for the second time, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student outfit Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad screened the Vivek Agnihotri film “The Kashmir Files” on the campus. This film too has seen its share of controversy, with an Israeli director and jury chairperson of the International Film Festival of India calling it "vulgar and propaganda".
Following this, a photo of a crowd at an open-air screening made the rounds on social media. Many sharing it said it showed the crowd that watched “The Kashmir Files” at HCU. One such tweet read, "ABVP shows Kashmir files in response to BBC documentary in University of Hyderabad. More youths here than people in combined theatre of Pathan."
Agnihotri also retweeted a similar Tweet on January 28, 2023, and dubbed the open-air screening "Housefull". The original tweet was later deleted by its author. The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
AFWA’s probe found that the photo was not from the screening of "The Kashmir Files" at HCU. Rather, it was clicked during the screening of the BBC documentary by its political rival, SFI.
AFWA Probe
A reverse search of the viral image led us to the Twitter of the SFI’s HCU unit. The viral image was one of the four photos from the BBC documentary screening. The tweet claimed that 400 students turned out for the screening, “rejecting the false propaganda and the attempts of ABVP to create unrest and the administration to disrupt the screening of the documentary.”
We also found several media reports, including one by The Hindu that contained the viral image. It was attributed to the SFI-HCU’s Twitter, and its caption reads, "For the second time in a week, the BBC documentary on PM Modi was screened at the University of Hyderabad even as the administration said it had not granted permission for it." Another report by NDTV also contained the viral image. Here, too, it was attributed to the SFI unit of HCU.
AFWA spoke to SFI-HCU president Abhishek Nandan, who confirmed that the photo was indeed from SFI's screening of the BBC documentary. Nandan said, “More than 400 students attended the screening of the BBC documentary, a huge slap on the ABVP's attempt to disrupt our event by organising the screening of ‘The Kashmir Files’ at the same time.”
He also identified one of the attendees visible in the image as Anushree, a student from the university’s Centre for Comparative Literature. AFWA spoke to Anushree, who confirmed it was her in the photo.
How many people attended ‘The Kashmir Files’ screening?
The Times of India reported that around 200 people attended "The Kashmir Files" screening.
We checked the social media accounts of the ABVP-HCU unit and found photos from the screening. The attendance at their screening appeared smaller in comparison to the SFI's screening.
AFWA spoke to the functionaries of the ABVP, who organised the screening. They placed the number of attendees between 70 and 100.
Karni Singh, the former unit secretary of ABVP, who was present at “The Kashmir Files” screening told AFWA, "The University administration tried to prevent us from screening the movie and tried to seize our projector, still we managed to screen it somehow and around 70 people watched the movie despite repeated threats from the administration."
Shravan B Raj, a central working committee member of the ABVP told AFWA that continuous interruption by the varsity staff caused the screening to be delayed by almost an hour, forcing many students to leave even before it started. “We somehow managed to screen the movie amid chaos. Around 100 students attended the screening,” he said.
AFWA also spoke to India Today journalist Abdul Basheer, who reported on the screenings and was also present at the campus. Basheer confirmed that around 60-70 students had attended the screening of Agnihotri's movie, adding that the event happened amid heavy deployment of police.
(Written by Vikas Bhadauria)
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