When Bharat speaks, Left-‘liberals’ cry ‘propaganda’: Decoding the Dhurandhar debate

Let’s drop the pretence. The outrage over Dhurandhar is not about cinema. It is also not about the craft or the nuances of the film. It is actually about control — control over who gets to tell the story, whose pain is legitimate, and whose nationalism is justifiable.

For decades, the medium of cinema — as well as literature — has been monopolised by the Left, masquerading as ‘liberals’. It was operated as a propaganda machine like no other — slick, sophisticated and seductive. For long, Hindi cinema, popularly called Bollywood, acted as a front of leftist ideology, where a villain with a tilak mark over his forehead was the norm, with a lecherous Brahmin and a Shylockian Bania being his favourite sidekicks. It was considered progressive to target, ridicule and mock Hindus and Hinduism, while the same secular parameter was rarely applied beyond the Sanatana fold.

Hollywood, in that way, was different, though it had its own idiosyncrasies. It instructed the world on who the heroes were and who deserved to be bombed, mocked, or ‘civilised’. Russians were villains. Arabs were terrorists. Indians were either mystical caricatures (remember Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) or expendable extras (the character of Anil Kapoor in a Mission: Impossible film is a case in point). All of this was wrapped in billion-dollar franchises and sold as universal storytelling.

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No one called it propaganda.

When Rambo single-handedly rewrote the trauma of Vietnam into a fantasy of American redemption, it wasn’t propaganda; it was ‘iconic’. When James Bond raced across the globe as a tuxedo-clad emissary of British superiority, it wasn’t propaganda; it was ‘style’. When disaster films showed Americans saving the planet — often alone, but in recent times with Chinese assistance (remember 2012 and The Martian) — it wasn’t propaganda but ‘cinema’ at its commercial best.

Such has been the propaganda value of such films that towards the end of the Beirut hostage crisis in 1985, the US President Ronald Reagan observed: “After seeing Rambo last night, I know what to do the next time this happens.” In fact, the character’s symbolic power extended to domestic policy as well. In a speech about tax breaks, Reagan added: “When I think of all the good people who’ve pleaded with the federal government for years to clean up our tax structure, I am reminded of a recent, very popular movie — and in the spirit of Rambo, let me tell you we’re going to win this time.”

Yet, despite their clear ideological, propagandist undertones, such films have rarely been dismissed outright as propaganda. Instead, they are often celebrated as cultural artefacts, expressions of national identity, or simply compelling entertainment.

But when Dhurandhar emerges, rooted in Bharat’s own geopolitical anxieties, reflecting its own conflicts, often civilisational in nature, asserting its own dharmic perspective, the same Left-‘liberal’ establishment is ready with its own version of a fatwa. The latest in the list is The Economist, which says that the two Dhurandhar “films are undisguised propaganda — not for the government or even the ruling party but for Narendra Modi himself”.

The Economist doesn’t stop there. “There is only one hero in this film, and it is not the undercover agent,” it writes, adding that the loudest cheers came when Modi’s footage featured on the big screen. “In Dhurandhar the enemies are everywhere: Pakistanis, of course, but also Indian opposition parties, Muslim butchers, Sikh separatists, NGOs, and lefties,” it states.

The magazine is ably supported by other Western media outlets, including the BBC, which writes how “in recent years, Indian cinema has seen a surge in nationalist blockbusters that openly reference government policies and historical events”.

Here, the real issue isn’t just political. What Dhurandhar has done is far more intricate than merely pushing a political line. It has disrupted a monopoly. It has challenged the unspoken rule that only certain nations and people get to mythologise themselves on screen — that only certain narratives can dominate the global imagination.

Dhurandhar has punctured this worldview. Because the film, while telling Bharat’s story, refuses to filter itself through Western approval. It doesn’t dilute its villains to make them palatable to ‘liberal’ sensibilities. It doesn’t seek validation from the West and its cultural guardians.

There is also a deeper anxiety at play. For years, global cultural discourse has been shaped by a self-appointed ‘liberal’ intelligentsia — one that decides which stories are progressive, which are regressive, and which must be silenced altogether. Films like The Kashmir Files cracked that façade by forcing uncomfortable histories into public view. Dhurandhar takes several steps further; it proves that such narratives can also be commercially viable, technically sophisticated, and globally visible. This change is intolerable to those who believed they owned both the moral high ground and the aesthetic one. Thus the labels: propaganda, jingoism, Hindutva nationalism, et al.

Here’s the inconvenient truth: every nation needs stories that tell its perspective. If it’s acceptable for Rambo and James Bond, it should be alright to have a Dhurandhar go on a rampage to push Bharat’s interests.

Dhurandhar, in that way, represents not just a film, but a shift. A moment when the ‘subjects’ of global storytelling stopped seeking permission and started speaking in their own voice — loudly, unapologetically, and with box office numbers that cannot be sidestepped.

The outrage, thus, is not about what Dhurandhar says. It is about the fact that it is being heard. Dhurandhar is as much Indian propaganda as Rambo and James Bond are. In fact, the Indian spy is far closer to reality, however unpalatable, violent and divisive it might seem, than the American hero and British spy have ever been.

Given its influence and the kind of disruption it has caused worldwide, Hindi cinema may very well be categorised into ‘BD’ and ‘AD’: Before Dhurandhar and After Dhurandhar. But more importantly, Dhurandhar has given Bharat its own voice — confident and unapologetic.

(The views expressed in this article are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of Firstpost.)