Jashn-e-Azadi , was one of the first documentaries to engage with the uprising for freedom in Kashmir. Released in 2007, the film has had a chequered screening career. Available for sometime in low resolution versions on Vimeo and Youtube and torrents, Raiot thought for a properly encoded streaming version was available for viewing and we asked Sanjay Kak for the permission.
He not only permitted Raiot to encode and upload but also wrote a short note about the film.
Sanjay Kak’s note on Raiot for his Documentary movie on Kashmir.
When Jashn-e-Azadi first began circulating in 2007, we were fully conscious of the chill silence within which it would speak up in India (and perhaps the world). What took us by surprise was the unexpected openness with which it was actually received, and the speed with which it was circulated. Viewers did not embrace it as some ultimate truth about Kashmir’s recent history, and we would not have wished for that either. But they saw it as a reading that contested the accepted (and carefully constructed) consensus of events in Kashmir.
There was flak too, mostly from a handful of groups seeking to create a legitimacy for their own limited agendas, trying to muddy the waters where a real conversation about Kashmir seemed about to happen. There was also a more silent disapproval, this one from an unexpected quarter: the Left/Liberal/Progressive space, those whose commitment to their own ideologies allowed them to transcend what was happening in front of them. The cycle of protests that convulsed Kashmir in 2008 and 2009 and 2010, the years immediately after Jashn-e-Azadi appeared, seemed to confirm many of the unstated ideas of the film. Almost ten years later Kashmir is once more torn apart by protests, and we can ask ourselves the old questions again. But most of all it is a moment to start speaking Kashmir again. Start speaking Kashmir now.
Film is 2 hours 18 minutes long and has always been screened in two parts with a short intermission. So watch part 1 and take a break (not too long) and then watchpart 2 and try to view it in 480p resolution.
Part 1:
Part 2:
