Explained : Dhurandhar is Not History: Pakistan, IC-814, and the Politics of Myth and Its Impact

Ranveer Singh in a scene from Dhurandhar. The film recycles the IC-814 hijacking to argue India needs a lone warrior at the top, while political reality reveals negotiation, pressure, and retreat instead.
| Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

A business paper described the budget with an illustration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the lead character of Dhurandhar—dressed in a black Pathan suit that barely contained his hyper-muscular upper body. The following day, Modi’s ripped physique vanished when US President Donald Trump unilaterally announced the punitive tariff on India would be withdrawn since, he claimed, we would be eliminating our purchase of Russian crude. And then the day after that, when Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi tried to raise in Parliament the claims from an unpublished memoir by former Army chief MN Naravane, that Modi had abdicated the responsibility of decision-making in the face of Chinese aggression in August 2020, Modi stayed at home; he subsequently and silently fled to Malaysia. Now, the opposition has given notice to impeach the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, not an everyday occurrence even if it is symbolic.

I decided to watch the three-and-a-half-hour-long Dhurandhar on a streaming platform. It is slickly made; a dazzling homo-erotic exercise in sadomasochism meant to entrance boys and reinforce the notion that all one needs is a strongman to single-handedly solve all problems at once. This thesis is currently being proved wrong IRL before our very eyes, but that does not matter. Apparently, Dhurandhar is the highest-grossing Hindi movie in India, having earned Rs 1,000 crore in its first three weeks, defying bad reviews. Entire generations of youngsters will continue to believe that a strongman can make India great again.

I suffered through Dhurandhar because when it was released, I saw trolls go on the offensive and force websites to withdraw negative reviews by informed critics. I also saw two YouTube reviews by boys who seemed to take the history that is imagined in Durandhar to be a collection of earthly truths.

Which is a problem because from the first “chapter” the film is a pack of lies camouflaged inside historical milestones. It shows the infamous 1999 hijacking of IC-814, grounded in Kandahar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Characters meant to resemble the then-Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Ajit Doval, and then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, enter the aircraft, where the passengers sit blindfolded. They are giving in, under orders from “Delhi”; the tired trope that India till now has only had spineless leaders.

Reel vs. real

The reality is that Jaswant Singh only arrived later, to deliver three terrorists held in Indian prisons. Doval was always just a member of a team that went to Kandahar from Delhi, led by future Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief CD Sahay, then Minister of External Affairs (MEA) Joint Secretary Vivek Katju, future IB chief Nehchal Sandhu, and officials from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (one of which was my uncle).

The film has gotten things backwards: Delhi certainly was under pressure, but Doval was one of those pressuring the Crisis Management Group for a speedier resolution. It was the opposite of Dhurandhar, where his character claims the terrorists are about to break. Of course, the scene where he tries to rally the passengers (the terrorists carried 175 blindfolds with them?) to cheer for India, but is met with silence, is too absurd to repudiate.

If a film begins on such a false note, then how can we take the rest of it seriously?

The film’s lack of knowledge was echoed a few days back, at a family gathering after a cousin died. Several men were discussing cricket, and one said that Pakistan was a beggar nation. He has never been to Pakistan. Yet such is the political zeitgeist that facts don’t matter; only beliefs do. It does not matter what happened with IC-814; all that matters is the narrative that India needs a Dhurandhar.

A recent film that is quite unlike Dhurandhar is Sriram Raghavan’s Ikkis, a superb film that makes you feel like you are inside Pakistan (or inside Pune, for that matter, in the scenes of the young cadets in training). You get a sense that it is a country of people and of feelings. Pakistanis in Ikkis eat food and feed guests. In this film, there are no enemies, only sufferers. Also, there is a kickass tank battle at the end, which is far superior to the videogame combat that characterises Dhurandhar.

Watching Dhurandhar, you hardly get a sense that it is set in Karachi, an incredible and bustling megapolis; rather, it seems like those flat, non-responsive backgrounds in which videogames are set. The film could have taken place anywhere in the world; the only moving parts are its hero and those whom he battles. Dhurandhar depicts Pakistani men as gay rapists and Pakistani women (particularly at a gathering with dancing) as unappealing. I have been to Karachi and the women look magnificent.

For any thinking Indian, the business paper’s illustration of Modi as Dhurandhar is belied by the non-decision of August 2020, when Chinese troops, merely hundreds of metres away, were advancing on Indian positions in Ladakh. According to Naravane, Modi instructed him: “Jo uchit samjho, woh karo”. Chanakya, Sun Tzu, and Clausewitz would have hung their heads in shame.

The interim trade agreement between India and the US, dictated by the White House, further underlines the point that Modi is no Dhurandhar. As did his absence from Parliament on February 4, when he was scheduled to give the customary reply to the discussion on the President’s address. (The Speaker apparently alerted him to the possibility that women Congress parliamentarians would disrupt the proceedings.) As did the email from convicted sex trafficker Jeff Epstein that claimed Modi had danced and sang in Israel in 2017 for Trump’s benefit. (The Epstein files made headlines around the world, but not in India.)

The world of Dhurandhar is simply the world according to a senile fantasy, where we play cops-and-robbers with Pakistan, when we should be playing chess against China. (Frighteningly, there’s a second part.)

Or maybe Dhurandhar has it correct: our strongman is nothing more than a videogame figure, fighting imaginary enemies for us, running out of time.

Aditya Sinha is a writer living in the outskirts of Delhi.

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