Why did India and the world watch Dhurandhar 2 despite propaganda claims?

Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS

Terror struck again in April 2025. An Islamist attack on tourists in Pahalgam left 26 civilians dead. The bullets were heard, yes, but so were the questions the terrorists asked before pulling the trigger. Less than a year later, nothing has faded. Not the anger, not the grief, not the need to make sense of it.

So when a film chose to revisit that wound – sharper, louder, less apologetic – we didn’t just watch it. We absorbed it. We carried it out of theatres and into conversations. The result? Dhurandhar: The Revenge, directed by Aditya Dhar, has crossed 30 days at the box office and still hasn’t fully run out of steam.

Was it propaganda, as some claimed? Maybe. But here’s the more uncomfortable question: is that the only way to read it?

And a second one, sharper: if propaganda alone could do this, why don’t all “agenda films” work?

Because numbers, inconveniently, don’t argue. They sit there and stare back at you. Dhurandhar 2 is among the highest-grossing Indian films globally, and it got there without China or the Gulf markets. That gap matters. It tells you this wasn’t just pushed, it was pulled. By audiences and across geographies.

So what were people really responding to?

Not balance. Dhar doesn’t pretend to offer it. His world is not interested in moral symmetry. It doesn’t pause to soften its gaze. Pakistan’s long-standing links to terrorism aren’t tiptoed around, and the consequences of that ecosystem aren’t dressed up in ambiguity. The film doesn’t hesitate in placing India as both the wounded and the one that strikes back. Victim and executioner – uncomfortably, unapologetically so.

And in fact, that’s the whole point. The audience wasn’t looking for restraint, but for a release.

Dhurandhar: The Revenge feels like both an endgame and a reset. Not just for scale, but for intent. A reminder that cinema, this thing we have reduced to weekend distraction, is still a weapon of ideas, emotion, and influence. Cinema can provoke, can choose to say something, and say it without lowering its voice.

If it sounded like the government’s echo at times, fine – ask the harder question: did it hold you for four hours? Did you sit there, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, reacting in sync – gasping, clapping, whistling like you were part of something collective?

Because propaganda doesn’t guarantee immersion. Craft does.

And if this was only propaganda, then how do you explain the paid previews recording historical numbers? Who tries to sell something to an audience that hasn’t even decided to buy it yet?

Dialogues like “Ye naya India hai [This is the new India]” reflected a certain mood that refused to dilute itself for comfort as the film kept circling back to one core idea: this is not about Pakistan, it’s about Pakistan-funded terrorism. That distinction, repeated and underlined, told us that Dhar knew exactly what he was doing.

He was never interested in candy floss cinema. No decorative songs to cushion the blow, no larger-than-life sparkle to distract you from the point. The ambition was clearer than that: build a world, make it airtight, and force the audience to sit inside it. No easy exits.

And the audience stayed.

What else explains a four-hour film turning into meme culture? Into shorthand on social media? Into something people keep quoting, dissecting, rewatching? What else pushes a film to dominate markets like North America and UK-Ireland, where sentiment alone doesn’t sell tickets?

What else makes viewers peel it apart, detail by detail, like they are trying to decode something larger than what’s on-screen?

This wasn’t meant to be easy viewing. And probably that’s why it worked. Because cinema has never been a one-note experience. It says one thing, means another, and does something else entirely. The best kind of cinema, in fact, unsettles you just enough that you can’t move on immediately.

Dhurandhar 2 has done that. It refuses to leave the room. Even now, when its theatrical run is almost done, the conversation hasn’t slowed. If anything, it has sharpened and that is rare.

For a generation of Hindi film audiences who hesitate before naming films they truly love, this feels like redemption. Like finally having something to point at without qualifiers.

There’s at least one film now that gets most things right: direction, performances, music, editing, writing, but above all, narrative building. That feeling of entering a world and wanting to understand it, even when it unsettles you – that’s everything. At least for the cinema lovers.

Or, as The Dark Knight reminds us, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” – except Dhurandhar 2 flips that gaze. It doesn’t wait to be judged. It chooses its side, owns it, and dares you to question why that makes you uncomfortable.

Ask any cinema lover what strong filmmaking does to them, and they won’t give you a neat answer. They will circle around it, struggle with it. Because it’s like an orgasm that builds slowly, takes over your senses, and leaves you sitting there in stunned silence – trying to understand how something so intangible just hit you that hard.

We could probably never be ready to let go of Dhurandhar. At least not yet. Why? Because endings like this don’t close doors. They leave them slightly open – just enough for a third part to walk in.

– Ends

SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA