Watching ‘Dhurandhar’ in India and Pakistan – Himal Virtual Cover, April 2026

Dear reader,

Since December last year, India has been caught up in a craze over Dhurandhar and a debate over whether the film and its recent sequel are propaganda for the country’s Hindu nationalist government under Narendra Modi. The duology – Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge – written and directed by Aditya Dhar, tells the story of an Indian spy infiltrating the Karachi underworld as part of an Indian operation to dismantle terror networks in Pakistan. Dhar employs a cunning mix of actual and assumed names, both documented and invented events, real-life footage and imagined scenes, to blur the lines between fact and fiction. 

The outcome is a film franchise that espouses Hindu Right ideology, vilifies Pakistan as well as Indian Muslims, and revels in blood-curdling violence – all with an ambiguity that gives its defenders plausible deniability and simultaneously misleads the public.

Himal’s virtual cover for April 2026 brings you in-depth, critical views of the Dhurandhar franchise – and of the Hindi film industry’s growing embrace of the Hindu Right – from both sides of the India–Pakistan divide.

From India, the film journalist and critic Anna M M Vetticad lays bare the one-two punch of the first and the second film, the first blurring the lines of reality before the second overtly glorifies anti-Muslim violence. “What begins as a spy story,” she writes, “ends as a paean to the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, as a justification of his government’s worst policies, and an endorsement of the divisive ideologies and tactics of his Bharatiya Janata Party.”

Raza Rumi offers perspective from Pakistan, placing Dhurandhar squarely amid Hindi cinema’s descent into Islamophobia and Hindu nationalism. He points to “the film’s reduction of Indian nationalism – which once spoke of secularism, equality and freedom – to a violent, masculine and misogynistic interventionism that seeks to ‘fix’ the enemy.” He further notes that “Pakistan, it is true, often frames its own nationalist discourse in similar terms, with India on the receiving end. Yet Pakistan, unlike India, does not have nearly eight decades of constitutionalism and pluralistic democratic culture to boast of. This is why, despite its denigration of Pakistan, Dhurandhar is ultimately a slap to India.”

Alongside these recent essays, we bring you a selection of pieces from Himal’s archives tracing the Hindi film industry’s long-running tryst with Hindu nationalism and its accompanying misogyny and xenophobia.

As vehicles for Hindu Right ideology and pro-Modi propaganda, ‘Dhurandhar’ and ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’ first blur the lines of reality before overtly glorifying anti-Muslim violence

By Anna M M Vetticad

From manufacturing mythic pasts to promoting muscular nationalism, militarism and Islamophobia, Hindi cinema is increasingly aligning with Hindutva politics, and ripping up Indian secularism and democracy in the process

By Raza Rumi

The insidious advance of cinema as ultra-nationalist propaganda has not been flagged as a most dangerous trend, one which is bound to lead to more Indian and Southasian instability

By Jaganath Guha

The Bollywood hit ‘Padmaavat’, India’s anti-sati laws and the failure to confront misogyny

By Laxmi Murthy

Kashmiri reception to the controversial film ‘The Kashmir Files’.

By Maknoon Wani

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’s charms lent a deceptive lustre to its ultra-conservatism, which helped pave the way for the brazen misogyny and Hindu nationalism in Hindi cinema three decades later

By Anna M M Vetticad

In a Southasian cultural landscape increasingly shaped by nationalist noise and majoritarian taste, independent criticism is an act of quiet resistance. Himal’s bold reviews and fearless cultural commentary allow our readers to question narratives of xenophobic conformity. Become a paying Himal Patron and help us bring more of our unflinching, independent journalism to Southasia.  

All best

Roman Gautam
Editor, Himal Southasian