In South Asia, cinema has always been the fastest way to trigger a diplomatic mood swing. One week, actors are exchanging cross-border compliments; the next, nationalists are threatening boycotts because someone wore the wrong color in a song.
But Dhurandhar has accomplished something remarkable: it has caused Pakistan’s establishment to lose sleep without even trying. Because Dhurandhar is not merely entertainment. It is cinematic provocation disguised as popcorn.
Movies don’t topple governments, but they do something far more dangerous: they shape the imagination of the young. And Dhurandhar does this with merciless efficiency.
For Pakistan’s establishment — already dealing with post-election turbulence, youth mobilization, and a political leader whose popularity seems to increase every time he’s arrested — Dhurandhar arrives like an accidental political rally screened in IMAX.
Its themes — state overreach, public resistance, and the fallibility of powerful institutions — are not abstract ideas in Pakistan. They’re the morning news.
And unlike press conferences, movies can’t be “managed.”
A Spy Enters Karachi. Pakistan’s Establishment Enters Therapy.
The actual plot of Dhurandhar is straightforward:
an Indian intelligence agent infiltrates Karachi’s crime networks, navigates the lawless maze of gang operations, and collides with figures modeled on real individuals, including Akshaye Khanna’s chilling portrayal inspired by Rehman Dakait.
There are guns. There is grit. There is espionage.
What there is not: any suggestion that Indian operatives are casually roaming Karachi in real life.
But subtle distinctions between fiction and reality have never stopped a South Asian establishment from developing indigestion.
The idea of an Indian spy confidently walking through Karachi’s underworld is enough to give Pakistan’s security elite that special blend of heartburn normally reserved for IMF conditions — or unexpectedly charismatic political rivals.
Karachi: A City with a Long Memory, Now Projected in 4K
The film doesn’t invent Karachi’s troubled history; it simply dramatizes it.
Lyari’s gangs, blurred lines between politics and crime, the uneasy coexistence of state and non-state actors — these chapters were written long before Dhurandhar rolled a single camera.
But here’s the establishment’s headache:
Bollywood has essentially taken Karachi’s old case files, added background music, and released them worldwide.
Cinema has a way of making uncomfortable truths shiny again — which is precisely the kind of shine Islamabad prefers remain very, very matte.
The Real Panic: Bollywood Might Be Paying Attention
The film’s implication that Indian intelligence has a window into Pakistan’s criminal universe is not news. Both countries’ agencies have been studying each other since before color television.
But cinematic presentation is everything.
When Bollywood wraps espionage in slow-motion shots, patriotic monologues, and conveniently timed explosions, suddenly the narrative becomes viral. Nobody panics when a think tank publishes a 200-page report on Karachi’s crime networks. But put the same idea in a movie with a budget and a handsome lead, and the establishment reacts like someone just leaked Season 3 of their internal affairs drama.
They may publicly deny caring about the portrayal, but the late-night WhatsApp messages between retired officers suggest otherwise.
Rehman Dakait: The Cameo Pakistan Didn’t Request
Rehman Dakait — the real Karachi gangster who inspired Akshaye Khanna’s character — is a sensitive subject. His era exposed cracks in law enforcement, politics, and security oversight. Pakistan has spent years stitching those cracks closed.
Dhurandhar rips the stitches out and applies neon lighting.
The film doesn’t accuse the state of complicity —
it doesn’t need to. History already did that.
What bothers Islamabad is not whether the portrayal is accurate.
It’s the internationalization of an episode they preferred to handle domestically, quietly, and preferably with limited subtitles.
Why Pakistan’s Establishment Is Really Losing Sleep
Let’s be clear:
- Dhurandhar doesn’t reveal operational secrets.
- It doesn’t expose the ISI.
- It doesn’t outline intelligence corridors.
If anything, it romanticizes espionage so much that real spies would watch it and laugh into their paperwork.
Pakistan’s security establishment isn’t worried that Dhurandhar exposes operational vulnerabilities. It doesn’t.
It isn’t worried the movie reveals classified networks. It doesn’t.
It isn’t even worried that the film glamorizes Indian intelligence. That ship sailed somewhere around Ek Tha Tiger.
The real anxiety is this:
The film normalizes a narrative where Pakistan’s internal fractures, criminal networks, and past governance failures are not just domestic issues but global cinematic entertainment.
Once something becomes entertainment, it becomes memeable.
Once it becomes memeable, it becomes uncontrollable.
No state — especially one as image-sensitive as Pakistan’s security apparatus — enjoys losing control of the narrative. And certainly not to Bollywood.
The insomnia stems from something simpler — and far more threatening:
The film makes Pakistan’s internal vulnerabilities part of global pop culture.
Not academic reports.
Not obscure documentaries.
But a mass-market action thriller.
When your governance headaches become a popcorn franchise, it’s hard not to feel… targeted.
In geopolitics, perception is power.
In cinema, perception becomes box office power.
And in Pakistan’s establishment, box office power eventually becomes a security briefing.
Dhurandhar doesn’t claim Karachi is a playground for spies.
It simply imagines a thriller in a city whose real history has sometimes looked like one.
If a fictional Indian agent moving through Karachi’s underworld feels plausible, that is not the movie’s fault.
That is urban governance’s midlife crisis showing.
Pakistan’s establishment isn’t losing sleep because Bollywood exaggerated.
It’s losing sleep because Bollywood didn’t HAVE to.
No institution likes being reminded of its blind spots —
especially not in Dolby Atmos.
Dhurandhar’s Real Achievement: A Popcorn-Fuelled Diplomatic Problem
The establishment is not losing sleep because the movie is “anti-them.”
They’re losing sleep because millions of Pakistanis may watch it and say:
“Wait… this looks familiar.”
Cinema has always been geopolitics with better lighting.
Dhurandhar simply updates the formula, making systemic critique stylish, exuberant, and algorithmically optimized for TikTok analysis.
This is the kind of narrative Pakistan cannot arrest, censor, or label a security threat.
It’s a movie.
It’s everywhere.
And worst of all —
it’s entertaining.
Final Verdict
As cinema: Stylish, tense, and unashamedly cinematic.
As geopolitics: Provocative without overreaching.
As satire on regional insecurity: Deliciously effective.
As a source of insomnia in Rawalpindi: Prescription required.
