Vivek Agnihotri’s The Bengal Files, the third film in his contentious ‘Files Trilogy’ following The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files, has ignited a fierce political controversy even before completing its first weekend at the box office. While the film has opened in multiplexes and theatres across India and internationally, it remains notably unreleased in Kolkata and throughout West Bengal—an issue that has escalated into a major political dispute.
Written and directed by Agnihotri, the film revisits one of India’s darkest and most debated episodes: the 1946 Great Calcutta Killings and the Noakhali riots. Portraying these events as a “genocide of Bengali Hindus,” the movie claims that this painful history has been deliberately suppressed or glossed over in mainstream narratives. Featuring a prominent cast including Mithun Chakraborty, Pallavi Joshi, Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Saswata Chatterjee, and Simrat Kaur, The Bengal Files was expected to garner significant attention for both its subject matter and political undertones.
The controversy intensified when BJP IT Cell chief Amit Malviya accused the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government of imposing an unofficial ban on the film. Posting on X (formerly Twitter), Malviya stated: “The Bengal Files, a film on the genocide of Bengali Hindus, has released worldwide, except in West Bengal and Pakistan. Mamata Banerjee should wear this as a badge of honour: not only has she insulted the sacrifice of Bengali Hindus who fought for their own homeland, but she has also placed them in the same bracket as a radicalised nation.”
The Trinamool Congress, however, denied any involvement in the film’s non-release, asserting that the decision was solely that of theatre owners and multiplex operators, with no government interference. In contrast, actress-producer Pallavi Joshi alleged that the West Bengal government and police officials had pressured theatre owners to block screenings. She disclosed that she had formally appealed to the President of India, seeking intervention to ensure the film’s release in the state.
This dispute over The Bengal Files adds a new chapter to the ongoing political clashes between the BJP and Trinamool Congress, intertwining issues of freedom of expression, historical narrative, and electoral politics.
