The air is heavy with shrill calls of war. On both sides of the Line of Control (LOC), some are busy spreading disinformation about the military measures and counter measures by India and Pakistan, while another section of citizens is rooting for de-escalation and resolution of the conflict through diplomatic means. In the meantime, there are those who are busy capitalising the tensions for their profits. In a now withdrawn trademark application, Reliance Industries Limited applied for a trademark for “entertainment purposes” on the name “Operation Sindoor”—the codename India used for its military action allegedly against terror bases in Pakistan—within 24 hours of the operation taking place. After huge public hue and cry over the insensitivity and ill-timing of the application, the company issued a statement clarifying that the application was “inadvertently filed by a junior person without authorisation” and has now been taken back. Reportedly, Indian Motion Pictures’ Producers’ Association, Indian Film and Television Producers Council and Western India Film Producers’ Association have already received over 30 applications from industry figures like Aditya Dhar, Madhur Bhandarkar, Vivek Agnihotri, Suniel Shetty and others to register film titles on Operation Sindoor as well as the Pahalgam attack.
No Business Like War Business
The simmering animosity between the two neighbours in the Indian subcontinent has often served as a dramatic plot premise for Hindi films.
This bid by the film industry to profit off wars on the silver screen isn’t new. In the aftermath of the Balakot airstrikes post the Pulwama attack in 2019, there was a similar rush by Bollywood producers to register probable film titles with the IMPPA based on the military operations. The history of the Indian subcontinent has been marred with the wounds of war ever since the Partition in 1947 and this simmering animosity between the two neighbours has often served as a dramatic plot premise for Hindi films. While war constituted a narrative backdrop for social dramas frequently in early Hindi cinema, films in the war genre were not a common occurrence, barring prominent exceptions like Chetan Anand라이브 바카라 Haqeeqat (1964). With high production costs and expensive location shoots, the war genre simply wasn’t a box office risk that most film producers were willing to take in the years before economic liberalisation.
It was JP Dutta라이브 바카라 Border that marked a new era in the Hindi film industry in 1997, when the war film finally began to be considered a commercially viable investment. Moreover, the enemy in these movies was well-defined this time in the form of Pakistan. This was a period that saw filmmakers capitalise the hostilities between the two countries, especially against the backdrop of the Kargil conflict in 1999. However, after a few films, the genre was no longer in vogue post the political shifts in 2004—once the frenzy around the Kargil conflict died down. The latter half of 2000s saw popular films like Main Hoon Na (2004) and Veer-Zaara (2004) attempting to depict a friendly equation with Pakistan, after the agreement of ceasefire along the LOC between the two countries.
The genre returned with a vengeance in the industry only after the election of a right-wing government in the country in 2014, when once again, the collective outrage within Bollywood films began to be directed towards Muslims in general, and Pakistan in particular. In the past decade, though a couple of films have tried to maintain a cautious distance from jingoism and highlight the human cost of war, the larger ideology of the incumbent regime seems to have found a consistent reflection in Bollywood and its cinematic vocabulary in the war genre. In the light of the ongoing conflict between the two neighbours, here is a look back at some of the more prominent films in the last three decades that have depicted the Indo-Pak wars in their themes:
Border (1997): The film was a dream project that director JP Dutta waited several years to make, as a tribute to his brother Squadron Leader Deepak Dutta. It was premised on the Battle of Longewala that took place in 1971 in the Thar Desert, during which 120 Indian soldiers—with crucial support from the Indian Air Force—fought against more than 2000 Pakistani soldiers, who were backed by nearly 40 tanks. Border was the highest grossing film of 1997 and received several accolades for its performances and scale of production. However, some of the real-life heroes of the Battle of Longewala were reportedly unhappy with their characters being killed off in the film, which reinforced the fact that the film라이브 바카라 intent had more to do with an exaggerated dramatisation of the battle and less to do with attempting a faithful documentation of historical events.
LOC: Kargil (2003): Post the success of Border, JP Dutta decided to continue testing the waters of the war genre and the Kargil conflict became his next subject. LOC:Kargil, much like its predecessor Border, was a high-octane multi-starrer war film based on the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999. Dutta라이브 바카라 fixation with realism knew no bounds in this film, and he brought the project to fruition with real locations, actual weapons and live ammunition. However, the film was a commercial flop with its lengthy, monotonous runtime, unnecessary subplots and the fact that Kargil—a live-streamed conflict—was still too fresh in people라이브 바카라 minds.
Lakshya (2004): Another film against the backdrop of the 1999 Kargil conflict, Farhan Akhtar라이브 바카라 second directorial endeavour Lakshya was radically different in tone and tenor from the Dutta brand of war films. Restrained in its dramatisation and subtle on the emotional spectrum, Lakshya focused on the coming-of-age story of one Army officer, Karan Shergill (played magnificently by Hrithik Roshan) and his internal journey during the Kargil war. Though it was a commercial failure at the box office, the film received critical accolades and achieved a cult status several years after its release.
Kya Dilli Kya Lahore (2014): The directorial debut of actor Vijay Raaz, Kya Dilli Kya Lahore was a war film uniquely advertised as India라이브 바카라 first “anti-war film” by its producers. Set in 1948, in the aftermath of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, the film is about two soldiers from across borders, who get stuck in a strange predicament when they’re both sent by their superiors to an Army outpost in the no man라이브 바카라 land area, to retrieve some files. The ensuing exchange between the two soldiers reveals the dear cost of the Partition that common citizens of both countries had to pay with their lives.
The Ghazi Attack (2017): Directed by Sankalp Reddy, The Ghazi Attack was the Hindi version of the Telugu original Ghazi, featuring popular Telugu actor Rana Daggubati. Advertised as the first “underwater war film of India”, The Ghazi Attack is based on a fictional face-off between Indian and Pakistan submarines in the Bay of Bengal, to avert Pakistan라이브 바카라 attack on INS Vikrant—the sole carrier of aircrafts for India—during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. While the Telugu version of the film won the National Film Award for ‘Best Feature Film in Telugu’, its commercial performance was average and many critics panned it for its terrible CGI and underwhelming screenplay.
Raazi (2018): Based on Harinder S Sikka라이브 바카라 2008 spy novel Calling Sehmat that was inspired by true events, Meghna Gulzar라이브 바카라 Raazi is one of the precious few films in the war and spy genres that is not dictated by chest-thumping nationalism. Set in the period preceding the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, it is a delicately crafted story of a spy—a young Kashmiri Muslim woman, played excellently by Alia Bhatt—through whom, the personal impact of war on families and loved ones is magnified. The film stands apart also because of the agency that it gives a woman in a war narrative—something that is rarely witnessed in war films, especially in Hindi cinema. Raazi was a critical as well as commercial success, making history as one of the highest-grossing films with a woman in lead.
Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019): Aditya Dhar라이브 바카라 debut directorial Uri was based on India라이브 바카라 military response to the 2016 terror attack on an Army base in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir. Merging fact and fiction with technical finesse in a jingoist melodramatic structure, the film became instrumental in BJP라이브 바카라 elections campaign during the 2019 parliamentary elections and many questioned the timing of its release for the same. It was a huge commercial success and made Vicky Kaushal a household name with its popular slogan, “How라이브 바카라 the josh?”
Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020): Apart from Raazi, Gunjan Saxena is the only other film with a war backdrop in recent times that has maintained a measured approach towards the idea of nationalism. The film is a biographical account of an Indian Air Force officer Gunjan Saxena, who was a young Flying Officer at the time of the Kargil conflict and helped in ferrying the wounded to safety during the war. Director Sharan Sharma presents an important critique of the gendered discrimination that Saxena experiences while training with fellow male officers, because of which the film also had to deal with significant backlash. Despite its inability to release theatrically due to the Covid pandemic, the film received positive critical reception for telling the tale of a woman officer during the Kargil war sans any jingoism.
Shershaah (2021): Tamil director Vishnuvardhan라이브 바카라 Hindi debut Shershaah had Sidharth Malhotra playing the role of Capt. Vikram Batra, a martyr of the Kargil conflict. The film is a biographical account of Batra라이브 바카라 life and his significant contribution in recapturing the areas that Pakistan took over in India-administered Kashmir during this period. Like Gunjan Saxena, Shershaah too could not see a theatrical release due to the Covid pandemic and had to make do with an OTT release. Though Amazon Prime claimed that it had become the most watched film on the platform post-release, some critics remained underwhelmed by its writing.