Dhurandhar 2: Dismantling Bollywood narratives tenfold

Ugadi and Gudi Padva greetings were exchanged, the Hindu New Year invoked, and then, almost without warning, the conversation slipped its familiar rails. What began as a routine discussion on a film turned into something denser, more political, more revealing. I was not merely listening to reactions about a four-hour spectacle called “Dhurandhar: The Revenge”; I was witnessing the birth of a larger claim—that cinema itself could now challenge, even overturn, decades of narrative-building in Hindi films.

The claim arrived with striking confidence: that Aditya Dhar has crafted a sequel not just bigger, but “ten times better.” Not only in scale or storytelling, but in conviction. Such language is not new to cinema—every release is wrapped in superlatives—but this felt different. This was not promotion. It was positioning.

For years, Hindi cinema—shaped significantly by writers like Javed Akhtar—has built what many describe as a “secular” narrative universe. A space where identities softened, conflicts blurred, and moral lines remained negotiable. What I was now hearing was a direct challenge to that legacy: that “Dhurandhar 2” dismantles this framework within hours. It is a sweeping claim—and precisely for that reason, one that deserves closer scrutiny.

What makes the film particularly intriguing, at least in description, is its ambition. It does not stay confined to a single thread. Instead, it attempts to weave together Pakistan’s internal politics, cross-border terrorism, fake currency networks, and even the 2016 demonetisation decision under Narendra Modi. Anyone who has spent time covering public affairs knows that such connections are often easier to assert than to establish. Yet here is a film that claims to “connect the dots” across nearly two decades—from the early 2000s to the present—compressing complexity into a single narrative arc.

And here, the film reportedly moves from suggestion to dramatization. There are dialogues—pointed, unmistakable—where fake currency peddlers and handlers are shown reacting to demonetisation with visible disruption. Lines that suggest their networks collapsing overnight, their stock rendered useless, their channels choked. The implication is not subtle: that the 2016 move did not merely affect domestic economics but struck at an ecosystem of cross-border illicit finance. Whether one reads this as cinematic interpretation or political messaging, the intent is clear—the film wants to anchor demonetisation within a security narrative, not just a fiscal one.

The emphasis on 2014 is equally telling. That moment—the oath-taking, the symbolism, the rupture—remains vivid in public memory. The film reportedly recreates it, complete with a line suggesting that despite international funding and institutional resistance, “the tea seller still won.” One does not need much imagination to picture the response in a theatre—the applause, the whistles, the sense of recognition.

Significantly, the film is also said to open with a shloka from the Bhagavad Gita—a choice that has itself triggered debate. And this is where the argument sharpens. Critics, described in the conversation as the “secular camp,” have questioned why religion should find explicit space in cinema. The counter-claim, equally forceful, is that religion was never absent from Bollywood—it was selectively portrayed.

For decades, the argument goes, representations of Hindus, Muslims and Christians followed a certain pattern. The Hindu was often reduced to the ritual-bound priest, sometimes comic, sometimes regressive. The Muslim, particularly when depicted as devout, was framed as inherently noble or incorruptible. The Christian figure—especially the priest—was shown as gentle, ethical, and reassuring. These patterns, repeated over time, became cinematic shorthand.

“Dhurandhar 2,” its supporters argue, disrupts this shorthand. It refuses to assign morality based on identity and instead places all characters within a harsher, more conflicted landscape—where piety and power, religion and violence, coexist uneasily. Its critics, inevitably, see this not as correction but as inversion. The tension between those two readings is central to the film’s impact.

But what lingers is not just the staging of such moments. It is the insistence that the film is not fiction—it is “experience.” That it does not transport the viewer into imagination, but returns them to their own lived reality, sharpened and intensified. That is a powerful proposition. It is also one that demands caution. Because when cinema begins to present experience as conclusion, the line between narrative and evidence can blur very quickly.

There is also a noticeable departure from the familiar grammar of the Bollywood spy film. The stylised conflicts, the romantic entanglements, the moral ambiguity—often seen in productions associated with Yash Raj Films—are, we are told, set aside. In their place comes a harder, more definitive portrayal, one that claims to be closer to the mechanics of intelligence and statecraft.

At the same time, the sweep of assertions expands beyond cinema. References surface—to Rahul Gandhi, Hamid Ansari, Inder Kumar Gujral—each drawn into a broader narrative about political decisions, institutional trajectories, and national security. Whether one agrees with these linkages or not, their inclusion signals intent: this is a film that wants to be part of a larger argument.

And that, perhaps, is the most interesting shift of all.

Because cinema here is not content with storytelling. It seeks to interpret, to persuade, to reframe. The invocation of the Panchatantra, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavad Gita places the film within a long civilisational tradition—where stories do not merely entertain, they instruct, they argue, they seek to shape understanding.

Yet, there is something new in this moment. Not the ambition—but the immediacy. The attempt to take events that are still recent, still debated, still unresolved, and present them as a coherent, settled narrative.

Which leaves me, as it often does, somewhere in between.

Between the pull of a compelling story and the discipline of scepticism. Between spectacle and substance. Curious enough to engage, cautious enough to question.

Because in the end, what I am hearing is not just about a film. It is also about a counter-claim—about who framed religion on screen, how Hindus, Muslims and Christians were portrayed, how demonetisation is being reinterpreted through cinema—and who now seeks to rewrite that frame, and how convincingly that case is made.