Aditya Dhar’s spy thriller Dhurandhar has stormed the box office and delivered a knockout punch to India’s perennial peace-with-Pakistan lobby and their cheerleaders in the liberal commentariat. Within days of release, the usual suspects – from The Wire to Anupama Chopra and Sucharita Tyagi – have gone into full meltdown mode, clutching pearls over “shrill nationalism,” “too much testosterone,” and the cardinal sin of showing Pakistan’s terror establishment exactly as it behaves: crass, indulgent, and dripping with bloodlust.
The Wire’s reviewer, in a piece that reads like a paid advertisement for Aman ki Asha, whines that the film “is as subtle as a troll” and takes grave exception to the portrayal of Pakistan’s “terror world.” Apparently, showing ISI officers as sleazy, chain-smoking, paan-spitting conspirators who fund slaughter in Mumbai is now considered Islamophobic fiction in certain enlightened circles. One almost expects the reviewer to demand a trigger warning for the 26/11 montage – you know, the one that uses actual news footage of the attack that Pakistan’s Deep State orchestrated and still refuses to acknowledge.
Film critic Anupama Chopra, never one to miss a chance to signal virtue, slammed the movie for its “inflammatory anti-Pakistan narrative” and complained that it is overloaded with “too much testosterone.” One wonders what exactly Madame Chopra expected from a film about RAW agents hunting terrorists: Katrina Kaif and Ranveer Singh sipping oat-milk lattes in Karachi while discussing gender fluidity with LeT commanders?
YouTuber Sucharita Tyagi took particular offence at the film’s “aggressive hyper-masculinity” and “hardcore nationalism.”
Visibly agitated in her review, she objected to the cinematic crime of depicting Pakistani politicians and ISI officers as “crass and indulgent” – as if the real ones are renowned for their monastic restraint and Gandhian simplicity.
But the real trigger, it seems, was Aditya Dhar’s audacity to weave in real audio recordings of the 26/11 handlers and actual news footage from both the 2001 Parliament attack and the Mumbai massacre. Tyagi frets that this “blurs the line between fiction and fact” and might lead the audience to believe “everything in the film is factual truth.” Pray tell, which part isn’t? That Pakistani terrorists carried out 26/11? That their handlers were calmly giving kill orders over phone from Karachi? That the ISI has never been held accountable? The only thing blurred here is the line between criticism and denialism.
The film ends, unapologetically, with the now-iconic line: “Ye Naya Hindustan Hai. Ye ghar mein ghus ke marega bhi.”
Sucharita Tyagi unable to cope with the aggressive attitude of India towards its enemies who keep sending terrorists across the border to murder sleeping children, train commuters, and pilgrims, says “Beneath the adrenaline, I continuously felt an unmistakable unease. Something sinister hums under the surface. I can’t quite articulate it yet. Perhaps my thought may become clearer when part 2 of this film comes out in April. But you best believe that something nefarious is afoot when the film chooses to end with “Ye Naya Hindustan Hai, Ye Ghar Mein Ghusega Bhi Aur Marega Bhi”
If Pakistan and its loyal Indian proxies are rattled, Operation Dhurandhar is already successful.
Check out this thread below for more meltdowns.
Dhurandhar melt down Thread 🧵
CBFC is Hypocrite guys 🤡 pic.twitter.com/NiL5Y3WGSt
— Monica Verma (@TrulyMonica) December 6, 2025
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