Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
In a country grappling with no shortage of political turmoil, crime, and genuinely newsworthy developments, the Indian media has remained embroiled in an animated debate for days over a single commercial film. It is telling to witness how Dhurandhar has rattled large sections of the Left ecosystem and proxies of Islamic jihad in India.
Dhurandhar unfolds as a hard-edged spy saga that follows India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), in its covert push into Karachi’s lawless Lyari in order to dismantle networks that have long funneled jihad terror and criminality across the border into India. The film interweaves fictionalized fieldwork with dramatizations that real Pakistan-backed violence in India inspired, including the 1999 Kandahar hijacking, the 2001 Parliament attack, and the 2008 Mumbai (26/11) strikes, to show how cross-border terror, proxy groups, and criminal syndicates have shaped modern Indian insecurity. The screenplay also involves Pakistani jihad organizations implicated in attacks on Indian soil, the political patronage that allowed underworld networks to flourish, and the security operations that sought to dismantle them. Unsurprisingly, India’s liberal commentariat, which Islamic apologists dominate, has expressed deep “disturbance” at the film’s exposure of Pakistan and Pakistani actors within the jihad terror ecosystem.
At the centre of Dhurandhar’s Karachi narrative is the Lyari don Rehman Dakait, a documented criminal who rose from Karachi’s underworld through extreme brutality. He reportedly murdered his own mother by strangling her and staging the killing as a suicide. Extortion, kidnappings, assassinations, drug trafficking, and public displays of terror marked his reign in Lyari, often while he enjoyed political protection through outfits such as the People’s Aman Committee. Investigative reports have also linked Rehman Dakait’s network to the supply of weapons used in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, underscoring how Karachi’s criminal syndicates fed directly into Pakistan-backed jihadist operations against India.
The characters of Major Iqbal and SP Chaudhry Aslam are not purely fictitious, either. Major Iqbal figures prominently in Indian and international investigations into the 26/11 attacks. During trial proceedings, convicted terrorist David Headley identified “Major Iqbal” as one of his ISI handlers, who received reconnaissance videos and operational intelligence. U.S. indictments also named him among Pakistan nationals accused of directing the operation, reinforcing India’s assertion that Pakistan’s military intelligence apparatus enabled the attack. SP Chaudhry Aslam, a senior Karachi police officer, was portrayed domestically as a hardliner against jihad activity. However, analysts have long noted that Karachi policing operated within a deeply compromised system marked by selective enforcement, political patronage, and blurred lines between law enforcement, militancy, and organized crime.
While a large section of Indian film critics, under the influence of pro-Islamic groups and with the aid of sections of the left and the liberal commentariat, may have hoped the director would romanticize or whitewash these figures, Dhurandhar does the opposite. It aligns its on-screen villains with documented individuals and real events, decisively shattering Bollywood’s long-standing modus operandi.
For nearly seven decades, Bollywood, despite being India’s own film industry, has echoed narratives mirroring Pakistani propaganda and Islamic victimhood at the cost of India’s security perspective. Numerous films portrayed terrorists as conflicted, victimized figures whom Indian forces allegedly brutalized. as seen in Mission Kashmir and Haider, while avoiding a clear depiction of Pakistan’s role in sponsoring jihad terrorism. Pakistanis were often shown as humane and peace-loving, while Indian institutions, notably the Army and intelligence agencies, were villainized or morally diluted. In an effort to whitewash Pakistan’s image, even Indian Army officers were depicted as antagonists in films that eminent Muslim personalities directed and produced, as in Main Hoon Na, blurring the line between defender and aggressor.
The spy genre further reinforced this distortion by portraying Indian agents romancing Pakistani counterparts, projecting a rose-tinted fantasy of Pakistani agencies while erasing their record of terror and proxy warfare. Dhurandhar rejects this romanticism and moral relativism, placing in the foreground historical wrongs inflicted on India and portraying Pakistan not as a misunderstood neighbor, but as a nation deeply entangled with Islamic terror networks. The reaction from Muslim-aligned think tanks was immediate and predictable. Accusations of “Islamophobia,” “majoritarian propaganda,” and “hate cinema” surfaced even before the film was widely seen. Selective scenes were amplified, stripped of context, and used to delegitimize the film’s very existence.
The film’s ban in certain Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries on grounds of its alleged “anti-Pakistan” narrative has further exposed the hypocrisy of the Islamic geopolitical ecosystem, where exposing documented links to terrorism is treated as unacceptable. The response reinforces the perception that ideological solidarity with the umma will always take precedence over accountability and free expression in these powerful Islamic states.
In India, left-leaning television channels devoted hours to heated debates, Islamic news portals published lengthy critiques, and communist-run newspapers carried verbose commentaries aimed at discrediting the film. Yet despite this coordinated campaign, Dhurandhar is marching toward unprecedented box-office success, with tickets selling at nearly four times the regular price. Indian audiences have clearly refused to be manipulated, choosing instead to think independently and judge the film on its own merits.
