Propaganda or Self-Reflection? Bollywood’s ‘Dhurandhar’ Divides Pakistan Over Karachi Gang Plot

KARACHI— Despite a decades-long ban on Indian films, Bollywood’s latest spy epic, Dhurandhar, has penetrated Pakistan’s unofficial viewing channels, where it is generating a fierce and conflicted reaction over its unflattering portrayal of the country.

The film, which stars Ranveer Singh as an Indian agent operating in a brutal, lawless Karachi, has been criticized for painting Pakistan as “pathologically hostile towards India” and for framing the conflict in religious terms. Crucially, critics and locals have pointed to multiple factual inaccuracies, including the central plot point that links Karachi’s local Lyari gang wars—normally confined to extortion and drug trafficking—to cross-border terror networks targeting India.

The sharpest controversy in Pakistan stems from the film’s use of real political elements. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which governs the Sindh province where Karachi is located, vehemently condemned the film for a scene featuring a fictional PPP rally, complete with party flags and images of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

A PPP leader labeled the scene a “malicious distortion” aimed at portraying the party as sympathetic to militants. This blending of real political figures into a fabricated terror narrative exemplifies the film’s controversial approach to history.

The reaction in Pakistan, however, is not monolithic. While many criticize the film’s negative lens, some Pakistani commentators have admitted to grudging admiration for the film’s technical quality. More significantly, they lament that the success of Dhurandhar is a consequence of the local film industry’s own “abdication” of responsibility.

Content creator Bilal Hussain, who grew up in Karachi, expressed surprise that the Lyari gang war was depicted at all, noting, “We won’t tell this story… so instead we greenlight shy scripts…”*

This sentiment in editorials and on social media suggests that, in the absence of a homegrown narrative exploring complex local histories, an outside, politically slanted version has taken root, unlikely to dent Bollywood’s enduring popularity in a country with a struggling local film industry.