Opinion | How ‘Dhurandhar’ Exposes The Hypocrisy Of The ‘Liberal’ Film Discourse |
The film Dhurandhar, released this Friday, has lit a firestorm of rage and debate. Many film critics, both professional and amateur, are furious that such a film could ever be allowed to reach screens, and many commentators of more delicate dispositions seem to be having hysterical fits.
This outcry around a film about an Indian spy deeply embedded in the Karachi underworld trying to unearth ISI plans for terror attacks on Indian soil is interesting. But maybe, in hindsight, not terribly surprising.
Before we get down to the meltdowns, let’s tackle the cinematic part. Dhurandhar is brilliant cinema, from direction and screenplay to editing and cinematography and acting. Every role is cast perfectly. The music and sound design are mind-blowing — a classic qawwali rides on rock rhythms and shrieking guitars, and old Hindi film songs seamlessly meld with hip-hop to become a pure adrenaline rush.
The violence and the torture scenes are more stomach-churning than anything I have seen in Hindi films, but the barbarism is not gratuitous at all. The milieu is savage, an urban hellhole where killing and betrayal are essential transactions for ensuring survival. Director Aditya Dhar has built a self-contained world, fully rendered in granular and gruesome detail — the lawless Lyria district of Karachi, with its rival gangs, psychopath gang lords, corrupt policemen, and murderers who are little better than animals.
In Dhurandhar, Dhar uses the heft of a hammer and the subtlety of a scalpel simultaneously to achieve maximum impact.
Now to the meltdowns.
One, it has been called a crude propaganda film. Yes, it is pretty obvious that Dhurandhar has a political bias. But Vishal Bharadwaj’s Haider openly pushed for “liberation" of Kashmir from India and no one called it propaganda. Rang De Basanti glorified violent anarchists and no one minded. So why are people getting so agitated now?
Dhurandhar claims that the 2004–2014 Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh government sat on its hands instead of confronting Pakistani terrorism. Ajay Sanyal, Intelligence Bureau chief — a doppelganger of Ajit Doval — tells a junior that his team’s work does not receive any support from the Union Ministry but they should not give up — some day a leader may emerge who would work for the nation and back them to the hilt. Till then, they should preserve all the evidence they have collected and follow the principles of “nazar" and “sabr" — watch and forbear.
Later, speaking about heaps of ISI-printed fake Indian currency being circulated across the country through hubs in Uttar Pradesh, he says that he expects no help from the current UP government, but things may change with a patriotic Chief Minister. In a post end-credit scene, Ranveer Singh tells the camera: “This is a........