by Farwa IMTIAZ
Upon its release in December 2025, Dhurandhar was readily accepted as another commercial success in the profitable Bollywood spy genre, and box office collections saw its revenue soaring well past 350 crores in the weeks after its release. Domestic critics praised the acts of Ranveer Singh and Akshaye Khanna, and numerous audiences hailed the movie as a captivating procedural with an espionage theme underneath it.
The victorious release of Dhurandhar, however, has an even more fundamental tale, that of how national cinema is coming to focus more and more on nationalist ideology, whereby complexities of geopolitical relationships are simplified into a well-known counterpoint, and, in the process, the potential of nuanced popular comprehension is swamped in declarations of nationalism.
From Entertainment to National Myth Making
Instead of constructing a complex geopolitical account, Dhurandhar creates a portrait of Pakistan as an unstoppable enemy, an entire people and a political movement that is approached in terms of Indian nationalist demands. Its synopsis is the story of an Indian intelligence agent who goes undercover in the city of Karachi, which is a city with rich history, but instead, the movie chooses to project it as a mere center of terrorism.
In Pakistan, political leaders have rebuked such descriptions. The provincial government of Sindh, in its turn, declared its own film, Mera Lyari, as an attempt to reflect the actual face of the district as a place of culture, of strength and peace, a direct refusal of one sided version of the story by Dhurandhar.
Misrepresentation of Balochistan and Proxy Warfare
Regional actors have criticized Dhurandhar on showcasing Balochs as criminals and terrorists. Mir Yar Baloch, a representative of the Balochs, said that the film does not show Baloch history or culture, and falsely shows celebration of Balochs in events like 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
On the other hand, various sources and analysts of the region have long held the view that militant groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) are used as a proxy in a larger geopolitical game. According to security briefings and open-source intelligence, there are factors in India that have at one point or another offered logistical, financial or strategic assistance to such forces, allowing cross-border attacks on Pakistani security forces and infrastructure. This kind of intervention is known as proxy warfare.
Erasure of Pakistan’s Counter-Terrorism Reality
The efforts of Pakistan in the international war on terror are breathtaking but are often ignored in available stories. Military and civilians have died in tens of thousands, and the economy of the country has suffered enormous expenses with combating extremist networks. Dhurandhar avoids this fact and instead presents Pakistan as a major source of destabilization and danger. This erases the frontline role that Pakistan has been playing in its effort to combat terrorism, and reduces a country with resilience and sacrifice into a villain to serve cinematic effect.
The Spectre of the May 2025 Conflict
The ambiguity of real conflict can never be contained completely in cinema. In May 2025, a four-day missile, drone, and artillery war between Pakistan and India occurred, being the biggest military conflict the region had encountered in decades. The violence was marked by deep strike and intense fire and a ceasefire was negotiated on 10 May.
Even the military of India admitted that it lost fighter jets in the war, and Pakistan stated to have shot down some of the most up to date aircrafts used by India. Following the incident, U.S. president Donald Trump, over and over again stated the number of Indian jets that had been shot down. Therefore, even when India fails at battlefield time and again, there is still a narrative of invincibility being put across in Bollywood. Movies such as Dhurandhar shifts practical strategic constraints of the real world into filmic victory, focusing on perfect intelligence, heroic missions, and total supremacy. By doing so, the industry is trying to create an image of national power that is more on screen, than it can be found in reality.
Cultural Narratives and the Future of South Asian Dialogue
The adoption of adversarial elements in Bollywood cinema with commercial motives is not a novel occurrence; nationalism sells. However, in instances where entertainment replaces discussion that is well informed, it undermines the basis of a sound regional discourse.
The cultural crossbreeding, economic interdependence and overlapping social fabrics of South Asia have a rich and common history, which Dhurandhar reduces to a consumerist version of the enemy. The numerous appeals of diplomatic involvement and peace, refusal to perceive society in general stereotypes, and advocacy of coexistence have been the main features of Pakistan, which is being opposed by the film with its preoccupation with confrontation and villainy.
The real tragedy lies not in the fact that Dhurandhar is following a time-tested false narrative but in the fact that everyone on both sides of the divide needs more genuine, authentic considerations of context, nuance and universal humanity to shift to lasting peace.
