The Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri uploaded a video on his Twitter account calling Cambridge University and Oxford Union “Hinduphobic” after the university administrations allegedly “cancelled” his ‘Humanity Tour’. The director has threatened to sue them as well. But his narrative turned out to be false.
In the video, Agnihotri claims that he was “invited” by Cambridge and Oxford universities. Terming the entire fiasco as “curbing freedom of expression”, he then goes on to Pakistanis and “few Kashmiri Muslims” for protesting against his event on Kashmiri Pandits. “They want to cancel the democratically elected government of India, especially Narendra Modi,” he said.
However, turns out, he was not invited by the institutions, but went there as the venues were commercially booked by diaspora Kashmiri Pandits. Moreover, his event was not cancelled, but reportedly disallowed from being videographed, which enraged him.
For many days, Agnihotri and his PR team have been uploading the poster of the ‘Humanity Tour’ that shows the director reportedly being invited by Cambridge. However, the university administration had repeatedly communicated to Agnihotri to stop spreading fake news that he was “invited” by them to speak on the topic of Kashmiri Pandits.
On May 30, the Fitzwilliam College from the University of Cambridge replied to a tweet talking about his tour, and made it clear the event was a commercial booking and neither Cambridge nor Oxford Union is hosting it. However, the director paid no heed.
When Agnihotri along with his actor-wife Pallavi Joshi arrived at the venue, he was told that the event will not be videographed, which clearly did not go well with the filmmaker who started arguing with the event organisers, many of them being Kashmiri Pandits.
Agnihotri went ahead and started arguing with them, even raising his voice in the middle, cutting them short and not allowing them to finish. A Twitter user put up videos of the same, which clearly painted a different picture from what Agnihotri has been claiming.
The event was not cancelled but was also not allowed to be video recorded. A disappointed Agnihotri went on with his narrative of “Hindus khatrein mein hai” (Hindus are in danger) and hardly responded to some critical questions posed by attendees.
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