A political film criticism worth its salt should do more than condemn popcorn-friendly sensationalism. It should pry open the deeper questions about representation, power, and the storytelling choices that shape public perception. On that front, Ira Bhaskar’s critique of Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, voiced in a recent Karwan e Mohabbat panel, isn’t just a personal reply to a popular movie. It’s a sharper indictment of how mainstream cinema in India can normalize a heavy ideological stance by wrapping it in glossy craft. Personally, I think this conversation is a reminder that art and ideology aren’t detachable; form and content travel together, often with consequences for how audiences imagine communities they don’t know well.
What makes this particularly fascinating is the way Bhaskar links commercial success to possession of a political project. She notes Dhurandhar’s box-office triumph as evidence that a filmmaker can be technically capable while also advancing a worldview she regards as Hindutva-influenced. In my opinion, this isn’t a paradox but a symptom of a broader industry ecosystem where entertainment and ideology co-author each other. When a film earns crores while signaling a particular worldview, it raises the question: should profit shield a filmmaker from scrutiny of the ideas embedded in the craft? The market phenomenon here can be read as a signaling mechanism: popularity grants immunity to contested interpretations, which in turn encourages riskier ideological storytelling in the mainstream.
The discussion also pivots on a fundamental craft question: can technique be separated from message? Bhaskar argues not. From my perspective, cinema’s power emerges precisely because visual form, sound design, pacing, and performance all serve content in a way that makes ideas feel inevitable. If you treat technique as neutral—the camera’s gaze, the tempo of a chase, the clang of gunfire—you risk letting the audience assume that what is shown is merely “realistic” or “sincere.” What this means in practice is that even if a director is a skilled technician, the choices about what to show, whom to depict, and what to omit carry ideology. The filmmaker’s hand is visible not just in what’s on screen, but in what stays off screen and what emotions those omissions breed in the viewer.
Ari Bhaskar’s critique of Muslim representation deserves its own spotlight. She argues that Dhurandhar enacts a very specific stereotype of Muslims—portrayed as inherently violent or criminal, with a cosmopolitan Pakistan framed as a landscape of danger. What many people don’t realize is how, in a narrative landscape saturated with real-world anxieties about terror and security, such depictions don’t merely reflect prejudice; they actively shape it. From my point of view, repeating a danger-saturated drumbeat about a religious or ethnic group isn’t a neutral storytelling choice. It’s a political move that normalizes suspicion and, over time, legitimizes discrimination in public life. The danger, of course, is subtle: audiences absorb these tropes as common sense, leaving little room for nuanced or humane portrayals of Muslim lives.
This raises a deeper question about what count as “inspired by real events.” Bhaskar notes the selective presentation of facts in films marketed as true stories, where the selective editing, the narrative arc, and the chosen villains convey a particular ideology. If you take a step back and think about it, the problem isn’t just fabrication; it’s moral economy. A film can claim proximity to reality while deciding which aspects of that reality to amplify or suppress to fit a political aim. In this sense, Dhurandhar becomes less about historical accuracy and more about epistemic strategy: controlling the perceived truth to legitimize a worldview.
The panel’s broader touchpoints—Dalit representation, secularism, and humanist storytelling—reflect a cinema ecosystem in flux. What this conversation foregrounds is not only the clash between art and ideology, but the question of who gets to tell stories—and whose experiences are deemed credible or worth depicting on screen. From my vantage, the current climate pressures films to be more than entertainment: they are carriers of political messages that can reshape public discourse. This is not inherently good or bad; it’s a fact of modern sensational cinema where profit, identity politics, and national narrative intertwine.
Deeper still is the implication for how audiences interpret films that claim to reflect real life. If Dhurandhar is presented as a standalone entertainment blockbuster, its ideological underpinnings may escape critical scrutiny for longer than they should. My concern is not censoring creators but elevating media literacy: teaching viewers to differentiate craft from content, and to interrogate the ideas behind the spectacle. What this suggests is a need for diverse narrators and for cinema to embrace plural perspectives—especially about communities that have historically been stereotyped in popular culture.
Looking ahead, the Dhurandhar moment may catalyze a shift in how studios approach content and how critics critique it. If audiences demand more responsible portrayals, filmmakers might be forced to reckon with the ethics of representation in addition to the aesthetics of filmmaking. In my view, that could be a healthier evolution: cinema that thrills while also inviting difficult conversations about religion, caste, and national identity.
Ultimately, this dialogue invites a broader practice of watching: not as passive consumption, but as an active negotiation with ideas. What this really suggests is that the line between entertainment and ideology is thin—and maybe that’s exactly the point to challenge. If we want cinema to reflect the complexity of a diverse society, it must resist easy stereotypes and embrace ambiguity. And if audiences and critics can do that, the art form may become not just more responsible, but more interesting. For readers and viewers, the question remains: when a film feels like it’s selling you a worldview, should you simply enjoy it—or push back, discuss, and demand a more nuanced cultural conversation?
