A Cold War farce is when two rival agents – one KGB and one CIA – find themselves in the same bar. The American tells his Russian counterpart: “I have to hand it to you – your propaganda is very impressive.The Soviet smiles and replies: “This is nothing compared to American propaganda.” The nervous American replied: “But we don’t have publicity.” The Soviet blinks and says: “Sure.”There’s a line: “Satan’s greatest trick ever was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”The same applies to American propaganda, which is why most people know the above line from The Usual Suspects, not French poet Charles Baudelaire’s The Generous Gambler. Like Satan, the greatest trick of American propaganda was to convince even the giants who consume it or produce it that it does not exist. It wraps this illusion in the fig leaves of morality, economics, neo-liberalism and Satan’s favorite sleight of hand: free will.The Nazis had Riefenstahl. Americans are obsessed with Michael Bay movies.Communists have agitprop; Americans have a “free press.”The interesting thing about the term agitprop is that it is a blend of agitation and propaganda and is named after an actual Soviet department from the 1920s.Recently the term “agitprop” was used to describe the sequel to Dhurandhar, Aditya DharGreat work of. It was one of the many words used to describe blatant dualism, along with ‘majoritarian’, ‘Islamophobic’, all the synonyms of intolerance, and a few more multi-syllable jaw-breaking words that would make even India’s most loquacious politician call it “a disgusting nonsense of distortions, misrepresentations and outright nonsense in the form of a film review”.The most common adjective placed on Dhar’s shelf is ‘propaganda’, a word that can be construed and tortured to describe almost every single film, if one tortures the logic enough.Reading: How Hollywood Mastered the Art of Propaganda Rang De Basanti can be seen as anarcho-pacifist propaganda wrapped in the fig leaf of patriotism.Chak De India can be understood as ‘transphobic’ co-operative anti-syndicalism, where the religion of the opponent is subverted to create a victim complex. Three Idiots is clearly anti-engineering school propaganda.And Bhaag Milkha is a film that shames people for not being able to run.Jokes aside, whether or not you consider blatant dualism propaganda depends entirely on your availability presumption, worldview, and what you think constitutes propaganda, and is obviously beyond the scope of this piece.What the duology does brilliantly is show how Bollywood – which we discovered after the Internet boom mostly borrowed, inspired, or plagiarized from cinema around the world – appears capable of creating civilizational myths.Every nation needs to agree on a foundational myth, a story that brings its inhabitants together. After its independence from the British, America had a ‘manifest destiny’, the expansionist belief that it was their job to spread the American way of life across the North American continent. This belief was supported by great American novels like The Last of the Mohicans and gun-slinging cowboy movies about the American frontier, which cleverly concealed the genocide of indigenous peoples.
For India – post-independence and pre-independence – from Buddha to Gandhi, the foundational myth has been one of nonviolence, or aparigraha, which was regarded as the basic operating system of our nation, even the accepted truth. Of course that particular myth ignores both the two foundational texts of Indian civilization: the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.One of the dangerous lies that runs downstream from that myth is that India has ‘never’ invaded any country, which actor Priyanka Chopra repeated on the Joe Rogan podcast, while showing willful ignorance about the maritime incursions of the Cholas and other dynasties. No one blames him; Hollywood and Bollywood actors are not considered experts on history, but this view reflects a popular consensus that exists among people.When India finally won independence from the war-torn and flailing British Empire, this myth stuck to our national DNA and even shaped our early foreign policy.Geopolitical expert Brahma as Chellaney argued In a 2019 TOI article: “If India had been proactive and far-sighted in securing its borders after 1947, it could have avoided both the Kashmir and Himalayan border problems. By October 1949 China was in deep turmoil and India had ample time and space to assert control over the Himalayan borders. But the harmful myth of India’s founding gave rise to a pacifist country that believed peace could only be found by seeking it, rather than developing the capacity to protect it.“Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and it’s much easier to look back at the man on the field and make a judgment call from the comfort of our keyboards. But we have learned the hard way that peace comes with a bigger stick than the other side, or at least a nuclear weapon, which Indian governments of all ideological shades have worked together to pursue.The basic myth of non-violence persisted in mainstream cinema and was in vogue until the last decade. Some of the commonly held beliefs were that Indians and Pakistanis are one and the same, who want to stay glued to biryani and Fawad Khan’s chiseled jaw. In the early nineties, this perception was so strong that Farah Khan’s first film featured an antagonist who considered Pakistan the enemy and a hero who, like Neville Chamberlain, just wanted peace.
This was a belief that the Indian public also believed to some extent, until the Overton Window shifted to terrorist attacks. But Bollywood’s worldview did not change, and it continued to present various espionage films, where Indian and Pakistani agents often dance before thwarting unknown and non-religious threats against both countries.On the other hand, films that deviated from this worldview performed so poorly that they appeared to be exploitation cinema trying to make a quick buck off of current political sentiment.That’s why Dhurandhar Dwand stands on its own, as it’s a rare example of competent myth-making that perfectly suits its audience’s availability presumptions.The Dhar duo reject Bollywood’s broad, formulaic approach to war films or spy thrillers, avoiding escapist item-number fantasies or surreal jamborees, with an extreme level of detail that would gladden the heart of Frederick Forsyth. The film uses ample real-life examples to serve up delicious Quentin Tarantino-style revenge fantasy, similar to what we’ve seen in Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained or Kill Bill.The music is sublime, a mix of old and new, hits from far-flung genres. Golden age Bollywood classics follow with qawwalis, as Punjabi pop, Arabic rap, Indian hip-hop and Western rock come together, accompanied by a background score that could have been developed by Hans Zimmer.There are plenty of scenes – subtle and not so subtle – that go out of their way to foster a sense of revenge, the kind of thing Hollywood has used to excellent effect over the years. Overall, this is competent myth-making. And your estimate of availability will determine whether it is myth-making for a particular spy, regime, religion, nation or civilization.This is not the first Indian film to do so. Both the Baahubali duology and RRR are exquisite artifacts of civilizational pride wrapped in gorgeous filmmaking, but the difference is that they are set either in fantasy lands or in history. Dhurandhar, on the other hand, is based in contemporary times – in the not-too-distant future – which is the lived reality for many people watching the film.Dhurandhar is a balm for the civilizational wound, or, as Arjun Rampal, a Mumbai resident who witnessed the atrocities during 26/11, put it: “This is my revenge.”Which brings us to the final question: Why is there so much mad anger against the film? Recently, when an Indian citizen pleaded guilty in a US court to conspiracy to murder an American citizen and a genuine Khalistani, social media was filled with people making fun of Aditya Dhar. The simple answer is that Great Depression Syndrome is the sigh of a former oppressor facing civilizational annihilation. The democratization of art is too much for a class that can control the channels of communication for long periods of time, that can decide what is and is not a civilized worldview. Dhurandhar is completely different from that past. Bollywood has some way to go before it can compete with Hollywood when it comes to myth-building, à la Top Gun or American Sniper, but it’s certainly a start.The title track of Dhurandhar contains a line: “You’re not ready for this.” In the sequel, there is a follow-up: “You’re still not ready for this.” The old population may not be there, but it’s clear that audiences and many residents of the new India are certainly ready for it.
