Dhurandhar

A group of wide-eyed, middle-aged men stare at a collection of TV screens, periodically erupting with joyful screams and frantic hugs of celebration. The scene is intentionally framed like a group of male friends watching a cricket match that their team is winning. Except what’s unfolding on those screens is the live coverage of the 26/11 terror attacks, as innocent people are gunned down. The cheering men are a group of top Pakistani officials, ISI top brass, gangsters, arms dealers and businessmen. One of them is even on the phone to one of the terrorists, gleefully barking instructions about which hostages to kill next.

Is ‘Dhurandhar’ based on facts? Does it cover the incredible feats of the late martyr Major Mohit Sharma? Many ticklish questions have trailed the film ever since its trailer dropped. On the face of it, the story of Indian spy Hamza (Ranveer Singh) doesn’t appear to be a replica of Sharma’s life. The setting here is Lyari, a town in Karachi where gang wars ruled. Yes, the film starts with a factual event: the hijacking of an Indian plane. Indeed, Madhavan’s character of IB chief Ajay Sanyal looks suspiciously close to that of NSA Ajit Doval. There are a few more terror-related incidents which lend an authentic tone and tenor to this thriller.

The last thing we hear in Dhurandhar is: Yeh naya Hindustan hai. Yeh ghar mein ghusega bhi, aur maarega bhi — this is the new India. It’ll break into your home, and kill you too. It’s a callback to Aditya Dhar’s previous film, Uri: The Surgical Strike, also about an Indian operation conducted on Pakistani soil. The word ‘ghusna’, with its connotations of an initial breach, feels more appropriate for the 2019 film, which ventures a few miles across the border for a short while. Dhurandhar, on the other hand, barely steps out of Karachi after setting down its bags there in the first half hour. The film is so immersed in Pakistan that India becomes a blip on TV screens.

In the last few years, Aditya Dhar has emerged as a dhurandhar, an expert who can soft pedal nationalist propaganda with aesthetic execution. After Uri and Article 370, here he turns a potential OTT series into a 212-minute unyielding character study of ‘enemies’. Addressed to an audience who lost faith in ‘aman in aasha’ with the neighbour after the Kandhar hijack and the Parliament attack of 2001, the film is mounted like a tribute to the exploits of Ajay Sanyal (R Madhavan), who seems to be based on National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. While the disclaimer calls it a fictional exercise, the similarities with real-life characters seem more than coincidental.

Aditya Dhar, who gentrified propaganda with Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), has made an accomplished Pakistan-set Hindi film with Dhurandhar. As a producer and director, his career leans on perpetuating bigotry in the garb of persuasive filmmaking. And while this continues with his sophomore feature, he also displays more curiosity about the neighbouring country than most outings, peddling similar politics, did of late. This perverse obsession is so extreme that if Dhurandhar was a teenage boy, one would assume he has a crush on Pakistan.

इस फिल्म ‘धुरंधर’ (Dhurandhar) का ट्रेलर देखिए तो पता चलता है कि एक युवक (जो भारतीय एजेंट हो सकता है), पाकिस्तान के लयारी टाऊन में पहुंचता है जिसके बाद बेहिसाब खून-खराबा शुरू हो जाता है क्योंकि भारत के खुफिया ब्यूरो के एक बड़े अफसर का कहना है-मुंह तोड़ने के लिए मुठ्ठी बंद करना ज़रूरी है। पर क्या आपने इससे पहले कभी लयारी के बारे में सुना था…? दरअसल पाकिस्तान की व्यावसायिक राजधानी कहे जाने वाले कराची शहर का एक बहुत पुराना और ऐतिहासिक इलाका है लयारी। इस इलाके की अहमियत इतनी है कि इसे ‘कराची की मां’ तक कहा जाता है। ऐसा इलाका जहां पख्तून, बलूच, सरायकी, सिंधी, कच्छी, मुहाजिर जैसी कई सारी कौमें मिल-ठन कर रहती हैं। कोई वक्त था जब यहां बलूचों और पख्तूनों (पठानों) में हमेशा तलवारें खिंची रहती थीं। दोनों के अपने-अपने गैंग थे जो अक्सर आपस में भिड़ते रहते थे। दोनों की सरपरस्त अपनी-अपनी राजनीतिक पार्टियां थीं। बलूच गैंग के सरदार रहमान डकैत (जी हां, यही नाम था उसका) के सिर पर पाकिस्तान की एक प्रमुख राजनीतिक पार्टी का हाथ था जिसके लिए रहमान लयारी में वोटों का इंतज़ाम करता था और बदले में अपने काले धंधे चलाता था। फिर एक वक्त आया जब खुद पाकिस्तान के राष्ट्रपति (जी हां, सही पढ़ा आपने, खुद वहां के राष्ट्रपति) ने रहमान डकैत को आशीर्वाद देकर उसकी एक अलग पॉलिटिकल पार्टी बनवा दी। धीरे-धीरे इन गैंग्स्टर लोगों का आतंक वहां इतना ज़्यादा बढ़ गया कि पहले 2012 और फिर 2013 में पाकिस्तानी सरकार ने इनके खिलाफ जंग छेड़ दी जिसे ‘ऑपरेशन लयारी’ कहा गया। यह फिल्म ‘धुरंधर’ (Dhurandhar) उसी ऑपरेशन के पीछे की कहानी दिखाती है, आगे की कहानी इस फिल्म के अगले पार्ट में दिखाई जाएगी जो मार्च, 2026 में रिलीज़ होगा।

There are two flaws that straightaway dog writer-director Aditya Dhar’s spy adventure. One, the intent may have been to use the first part of the two-instalment film to set up what happened before New India woke up to counter its belligerently violent neighbour. However, the focus is so much on building an elaborate scene of the gang wars and politics of Pakistan that nobody out here would connect with it. Honestly, who cares who’s in power and who’s murdering whom in the neighbouring country? Two, the disconnect is heightened with Dhar’s failure to make it a thrilling watch. At over 3.5 hours, it is laborious, unexciting storytelling.