Hyderabad: In India, cinema becomes a national conversation very quickly when the story fits the mood. But when a film asks people to look at Palestinian suffering without filters, the silence becomes louder than the applause.
Journalist Rana Ayyub has now put that silence into words after watching The Voice of Hind Rajab. In her Instagram post, Rana said she came home “shaken” after watching the film, but what broke her was not just the story on screen. It was the sight of barely ten people sitting inside a South Bombay theatre. She said she had travelled from New Bombay to Fort to watch the film, adding that the ticket at Sterling Cineplex cost only rs 250 per person.
The empty theatre, according to Rana, felt like an “indictment.” She reminded people that Hind Rajab was only five years old when she made her final calls for help, and urged audiences to show up, fill seats, take friends and talk about the film afterwards.
“Watch this film. Take your friends, your colleagues, your family. Fill the seats. Talk about it afterwards. Carry it with you. And if we cannot even bear witness to the dead, what exactly do we mean when we say we care?” she wrote in her caption.
The post hits harder because The Voice of Hind Rajab did not have a smooth journey to Indian screens. The film was earlier stalled by the CBFC, with its Indian distributor claiming that authorities feared its release could affect India Israel relations. The film was later cleared with an A certificate and set for release across Indian cinemas on June 19.
That is where the larger question begins. If a film about a five-year-old Palestinian child is seen as a diplomatic risk, what exactly are we protecting? A relationship? A government line? Or the comfort of an audience that does not want to look at inconvenient grief?
Imtiaz Ali’s “Mein Vaapas Aaunga”
This is not just about one film. The same selective attention can be seen around Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga. The film, starring Diljit Dosanjh, is rooted in Partition-era longing, displacement and the emotional pull of an ancestral home in Sargodha. It speaks about memory, belonging and the pain of borders.
But films that speak about unity rarely get the same aggressive limelight as films that fit the current political mood. A story that humanises the “other side” does not feed the loud Modi propaganda template where anger, suspicion and nationalism often sell better than empathy.
Rana’s post and Imtiaz Ali’s film may be different in subject, but both raise the same uncomfortable point: India is becoming selective about whose pain deserves attention. Palestinian grief is made political. Partition grief is softened into nostalgia. Unity is treated like a risky message, while hate gets marketing budgets.
In the end, Rana Ayyub’s post is not just a film recommendation. It is a mirror. The question is not whether The Voice of Hind Rajab is worth watching. The question is why a country that claims to care so loudly is still leaving theatres empty when the dead ask to be remembered.
More about The voice of Hind Rajab
The Voice of Hind Rajab, written and directed by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, is based on the real final emergency calls of Hind Rajab, the five-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car under fire in Gaza while Red Crescent workers tried to reach her. Starring Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Amer Hlehel and Clara Khoury, the film uses Hind’s real voice to remind the world that behind every war headline is a child, a family and a life that deserved protection. That is why the film matters and why watching it is not just about cinema, but about bearing witness to a story the world should not be allowed to forget.
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