Pulwama, Srinagar: The trailer of Ajay Devgn’s upcoming Bollywood action film, Chauhaan, has rekindled painful memories for thousands of Kashmiri pellet survivors whose lives were permanently altered by pellet injuries during the years of unrest in the valley.For viewers unfamiliar with Kashmir’s recent past, the trailer’s “pellet guns, limited damage” line may appear unremarkable.But for pellet victims, it has come as a denial of a lived reality that left thousands maimed and hundreds partially or completely blind.The criticism surrounding the trailer focuses on how one of the most painful chapters of Kashmir’s recent history is remembered and represented by Bollywood to its audiences across India and the world.According to official figures, 10,000 people in Jammu and Kashmir got injured due to pellets between 2010 and 2016.The highest number of such injuries were recorded during the 2016 unrest when more than 6,000 people, including protesters, were hit by pellets following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.Also read: Centre Plans to Introduce Plastic Bullets in Kashmir. Are They Really ‘Non-Lethal’?Government data shows that at least 782 people suffered eye injuries, with many losing one or both eyes. Hospitals across the Valley treated patients with ruptured eyeballs, retinal injuries and permanent blindness.In 2016, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association petitioned the High Court seeking a ban on pellet guns. In March 2020, the court dismissed the plea, observing that “so long as there is violence by unruly mobs, use of force is inevitable.”‘The injury never ended’Mohd Ashraf, who lost vision in his right eye after he was hit by pellets, says the resulting trauma has become a part of his life.“We were running an organisation demanding rehabilitation for pellet victims, but because of constant intimidation we had to shut it down in 2024. During our last interaction with the media, we demanded a complete ban on pellet guns not only in Kashmir but across the world. We know this pain in a way that few others can understand,” Ashraf told The Wire.“I was once hit by a bullet, but that wound healed and I eventually forgot about it. The pellet injury, however, has left a wound that will heal only after I enter my grave,” Ashraf, who depends on his family, said.Thirty-three-year-old Jehangir Ahmad still remembers the sound before he remembers the pain.He had stepped out of his poultry farm to return home in Payar area of Pulwama after the Valley shut down following Burhan Wani’s killing.While travelling through Tahab village, he found himself caught between security forces and stone-throwing protesters. “As I tried to escape, the police fired pellets. A few struck my right eye,” Ahmad told The Wire.He was first taken to the district hospital before being referred to Srinagar’s Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS) Hospital.“I was asked to share an ambulance with a pregnant woman. When we reached Newa in Pulwama, army personnel and police dragged me out of the vehicle and beat me,” he recalled.Nearly a decade later, the injury still shapes his everyday life.Also read: Use of Pellet Guns Has Caused a Public Health Crisis in KashmirHe struggles to judge distances and bright lights cause discomfort. For years, Ahmad wasn’t a suitable groom, though he finally got married.“We have faced state violence and now Bollywood is mocking our suffering,” he said, referring to Chauhaan, “They can profit from our pain while distorting what actually happened.”For Ahmad, the controversy is about far more than a single sentence. “It wasn’t just wrong. It made me feel that everything we went through had been reduced to a dialogue.”A mother’s memoryMahjabeen, whose teenage son was hit by pellets during the 2016 unrest has not watched the trailer. She has heard about the controversial dialogue, though.Her son was sixteen when pellets struck his face after he stepped out of their home during a curfew. Surgeons spent hours trying to save his eyes, but they managed to save only one.She remembers waiting outside the operating theatre through the night of the operation. “Every time a doctor walked out, I hoped there would be good news,” she told The Wire. “But there wasn’t.”Her son survived, but his life changed completely. Reading became difficult. Employment opportunities narrowed because of his impaired vision.“When I heard that someone has described pellet injuries as ‘limited damage’, I wondered whether they had ever sat beside a child who might never see again,” she said.‘Among the most devastating injuries’The use of pellet guns, introduced in 2010 as a supposedly non-lethal alternative to assault rifles, has long drawn criticism from human rights groups and medical professionals.A 2019 study by the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Srinagar found that 85% of pellet victims developed psychiatric disorders.Among those with eye injuries, the figure rose to nearly 93%, the study found.Another study published in the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, led by Mumbai-based retina surgeon Dr S. Natarajan, found that after treatment, best-corrected visual acuity remained at “counting fingers or worse” in 82.4% of injured eyes.The report, which was approved by Srinagar’s SMHS’s Institutional Review Board, was carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, a set of ethical principles published by the World Medical Association to guide the protection of human participants in medical research.‘Films shape public memory’The dialogue in Chauhaan has drawn criticism from political leaders, rights advocates, medical professionals, film critics and social media users.They argue that describing pellet guns as causing “limited damage” trivialises the documented suffering of thousands of Kashmiris.A Delhi-based researcher, Dr Ruchika Sharma, believes the debate extends well beyond cinema. “Films enjoy artistic freedom,” she said. “But when they draw from real events, they also shape public memory.”Also read: Ground Report | Pellet Blindings Back as Protestors Challenge Centre’s Kashmir MoveSharma believes the dialogue has provoked outrage because it appears to minimise documented suffering and described attempts to normalise pellet guns as “deeply troubling”. “It is a documented fact that pellet guns cause lasting and devastating injuries. This is not a matter of opinion,” she said.“If you look at these movies, they’re getting disturbingly violent, right? So, Dhurandar had forms of violence that really shook people, whether it spies being tortured, etc., it is just extreme. That the censors are allowing such levels of violence is ridiculous,” she said.A National Conference spokesperson, Imran Nabi Dar, accused the filmmakers of presenting a misleading narrative. “This teaser is not based on facts. Even the statistics cited regarding paramilitary personnel are misleading. It appears to be propaganda intended to deepen divisions,” Dar said.“Pellet guns have left people with lifelong disabilities. In some cases, people have died. To trivialise their suffering is reprehensible.”Artistic freedom?Filmmaker and writer Sanjay Kak believes the controversy raises very crucial questions about cinema’s responsibility towards society. “It’s hard to see the line about the ‘limited damage’ caused by the pellet gun as a question of ‘artistic freedom’ or a simple lack of sensitivity towards victims,” he told The Wire.Instead, Kak argues, the dialogue reflects a larger political context in which the suffering of Kashmiris is diminished.“It’s more useful to explore the majoritarian context that allows a big-budget A-list Bollywood film to rub salt on the indescribable, life-long wounds inflicted by this terrible weapon,” says Kak.He referred to another line in the trailer – Pachhattar saal ke baad jawab aa raha hai. Pathanon se kehna Chauhaan aa raha hai (The response waited for 75 years. Tell the Pathans that Chauhaan is coming” – which, he says, frames the story within the majoritarian political narrative.“The ‘75 years’ are presumably the years of Indian independence. And the term Pathan is used here in a revealing way, as an omnibus word that includes – at the very least – Kashmiri Muslims, Pakistani Muslims, the Mughals, take your pick. And Chauhaan? That would probably be Prithviraj Chauhan, who unified Hindu Rajputs against Muslim invaders,” Kak said.Kak also said that within such a framework, the suffering inflicted by pellet guns risks being erased in favour of a triumphant political message.“So when the film plays out to its majoritarian audience the enormity of what was inflicted on Kashmiris by the pellet gun, the criminalities embedded in each pellet that entered a body in Kashmir, from 19-month-old Hiba Nisar to 80-year-old Abdul Qayoom Bhat, are meant to be silenced before the larger redemption that Chauhaan will bring to the new, ‘Hindu India’,” Kak said.Acclaimed Kashmiri-British novelist Mirza Waheed expressed similar concerns.“In many parts of the world, artists and filmmakers stand with victims of violence,” Waheed told The Wire. “They raise awareness, support rehabilitation and express solidarity. That is a universal humanitarian impulse.”“But in the violence-extolling sections of Bollywood, it has, sadly, become quite the opposite,” he continued, “They mock the victims, jeer at young Kashmiris blinded by pellets a decade ago, teenagers who’ve since lived and continue to live lives of darkness. By suggesting blinding them wasn’t enough, they humiliate their suffering and call for further violence.”Waheed urged the filmmakers to reflect on the ethical consequences of such portrayals.“The actors, the crew, the producers associated with such film projects must pause to reflect. Have they gone too far in search of box-office success, might they have lost some of their humanity in this competitive race to dehumanise Muslim and Kashmiri lives?” Waheed said.“Being blinded for life is a perennial zakhm – an eternal wound – for pellet victims and their families. It is inhumane to poke those wounds for entertainment.”More than a ‘dialogue’For thousands of survivors, the anger surrounding the trailer is not rooted in a single dialogue. It comes from the fear that one of Kashmir’s most painful chapters is being simplified and perhaps rewritten, for entertainment purposes.Behind every government statistic is a face. Behind every medical record is a family. Behind every eye injury is a life permanently altered. Behind every such ‘dialogue’ is a silenced victim.That is why, for many in Kashmir, the words “limited damage” carry a weight far greater than the filmmakers cared to imagine.Junaid Dar is a freelance journalist.