The New Grammar of Patriotism

Dhurandhar’s continuing box-office smash reveals how Bollywood’s patriotism has evolved from chest-thumping emotion to cool-headed statecraft.

Bollywood has always moved in cycles. At one point, it obsessed over star-crossed lovers, in another phase, it was family melodramas or vigilante revenge. Yet one theme returns with almost metronomic regularity: the nation at war with itself or with others. Patriotism, in Hindi cinema, is not merely a genre but a barometer of national mood. When the country is anxious, the films grow sombre; when it is confident, they grow loud; when it is uncertain, they become sentimental. To track the evolution of India’s war films is therefore to track the evolution of India’s political and psychological mood.

From the very beginning, Hindi cinema has been drawn to the battlefield. The trauma of Partition and the wars that followed gave filmmakers a ready supply of heroism, tragedy and moral clarity. Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat (1964), based on India’s disastrous 1962 war with China, was one of the earliest attempts to grapple with defeat on screen. It did not disguise the humiliation of ill-prepared soldiers sent into the Himalayas. Instead, it lingered on their loneliness and sacrifice. Patriotism here was not triumphant but mournful, a form of collective grieving.

That tradition continued through films such as Vijeta (1982), which was set against the backdrop of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War but focused less on dogfights and more on the internal doubts of a young air-force pilot. Even J. P. Dutta’s grander spectacles like Border (1997) and later LOC Kargil (2003) were soaked in sentiment. Their soldiers sang to their families, agonised over their fears and died with patriotic songs on their lips. Victory mattered, but so did tears. These films embedded themselves in popular memory not because they were subtle, but because they were emotionally honest about the cost of war.

Then, for a while, this sombre patriotism gave way to something louder. Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) arrived with the force of a cultural earthquake. Sunny Deol’s hand-pump-wielding Sikh hero, roaring defiance at Pakistani villains, introduced a more muscular nationalism to the mainstream. Subtlety was replaced by decibel levels as enemies were no longer tragic adversaries but caricatures to be vanquished. The timing was not accidental. India in the late 1990s and early 2000s was rediscovering its assertiveness after economic liberalisation and nuclear tests. Cinema reflected that new swagger.

Soon, however, another strain of patriotism emerged, one that was glossier and more globalised. Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions wrapped nationalism in silk scarves and soft-focus romance. In films such as Veer-Zaara and Ek Tha Tiger, love stories unfolded across hostile borders, suggesting that the heart could do what diplomacy could not. These films were huge hits, but they also grew increasingly disconnected from a public mood that was turning less sentimental about geopolitics. The idea that an Indian spy might fall for a Pakistani agent and ride into the sunset began to feel quaint in an era of cross-border terror attacks and hardening attitudes.

Changing Sensibilities

The true rupture came in 2019 with Uri: The Surgical Strike. Based on India’s real-life retaliation after the 2016 attack on an army base in Kashmir, it abandoned the melodrama of earlier war films. There were no tragic love songs, no operatic speeches about the motherland. Instead, director Aditya Dhar treated the military operation like a boardroom exercise: meticulous planning, bureaucratic wrangling, dry humour and disciplined execution. When Vicky Kaushal’s officer barked “How’s the josh?” it sounded less like a slogan and more like a status check. The line caught on because it captured a national mood that prized competence over catharsis.

Uri rewrote the grammar of patriotic cinema. It suggested that modern Indian audiences were no longer interested in cinematic soldiers who wept and sang. They wanted professionals who planned and delivered. While Uri was the fourth-highest-grossing Indian film of 2019, a National Award confirmed Dhar’s instincts that a new type of patriotic filmmaking had struck a chord with audiences.

That chord has been struck again, even louder, with Dhurandhar, Dhar’s follow-up released in December 2025. On paper it has all the trappings of a blockbuster: Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, R. Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Rampal, backed by the deep pockets of Jio Studios. Its global box-office haul - over Rs. 1,000 crore - places it among the biggest Indian films ever made. Yet its success cannot be explained by spectacle alone. What has truly set Dhurandhar apart is its restraint.

Unlike the bombastic films of the Gadar era or the dreamy romances of the Shah Rukh Khan spy cycle, Dhurandhar treats conflict as a grim and technical affair. Its antagonist, Rehman Dakait, is no cardboard villain. He is intelligent, ruthless and formidable. But crucially, the film never invites sympathy for him. In earlier decades, Bollywood often flirted with the idea that even terrorists were merely misunderstood romantics. Today’s audiences, shaped by decades of news about insurgencies and proxy wars, have little patience for that moral fog. They are willing to admire a clever enemy, but not to excuse one.

Ranveer Singh’s protagonist embodies this new sensibility. He does not thump his chest or declaim about Bharat Mata. He watches, calculates and waits. When Dakait is finally eliminated, the moment is neither slow-motion nor triumphant. It is clinical. The scene resembles a military briefing more than a victory parade. That coolness is precisely what has resonated with viewers. In an age of real-time satellite images and televised drone strikes, war is no longer imagined as a heroic melee but as a series of precise interventions.

What Dhurandhar leaves out is as telling as what it includes. There is no cross-border romance to soften the blow of geopolitics. There are no item numbers to distract from the plot. There is no tortured soliloquy about the enemy’s childhood. In a political climate where national security is openly debated and where voters reward decisiveness, ambiguity has lost its appeal. Yet the film stops short of propaganda. It does not sermonise but simply shows a system at work where intelligence officers, field agents and commanders are coordinating towards a clear objective.

This emphasis on systems marks another shift. Bollywood has long been obsessed with the lone saviour, the man who defies orders to save the day. Dhurandhar suggests a different model of power that is procedural and institutional. The victory belongs not to one swaggering officer but to a network of professionals. That mirrors how many Indians now see their state - not as a fragile entity held together by charisma, but as a machine that, when properly run, delivers results.

Generational Change

The broader cultural implications are striking. For decades, patriotic cinema oscillated between guilt and grandstanding, between apologising for India’s vulnerabilities and boasting about its strength. The new mode is quieter. It does not need to shout because it assumes confidence. It does not need to hate entire nations because it distinguishes between adversaries and threats. It does not need to romanticise war because it understands its costs.

This evolution also reflects a generational change. Younger viewers have grown up with a 24-hour news cycle, satellite imagery and social media debates about geopolitics. They are less interested in mythologised battles and more in the mechanics of power. A film that shows how intelligence is gathered, how decisions are made and how operations are executed feels more authentic to them than one that relies on patriotic poetry.

Bollywood, often accused of lagging behind social change, has in this case kept pace. The journey from Haqeeqat’s mournful soldiers to Dhurandhar’s methodical operatives traces a nation’s path from post-colonial vulnerability to self-assured statehood. Each phase had its own cinematic language: the elegiac, the bombastic, the romantic and now the strategic.

None of this means that emotion has vanished from patriotic cinema. It has simply been redirected. Pride now lies not in loud declarations but in quiet competence. Sacrifice is no longer measured by how many tears are shed, but by how efficiently a mission is completed. Even courage has been redefined: it is the bravery to make hard, unglamorous decisions in the shadows rather than heroic charges in the spotlight.

In that sense, Dhurandhar is more than a blockbuster. It is nothing short of a signpost that points to a Bollywood that has finally caught up with the India of its audience - an India that sees itself as a serious player in a dangerous world, and that expects its stories to reflect that seriousness.

When Nationalism Ruled the Box Office

Released in 2001, ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ became a defining moment for mass nationalist cinema. Set during Partition, the film blended romance with raw patriotism, offering moral clarity at a time when audiences preferred emotion over nuance. Sunny Deol’s Tara Singh emerged as a symbol of unfiltered national pride.

Business Snapshot

Budget: Rs19 -20 crore. India Gross: Rs.80-85 crore. Worldwide Gross: Rs.140 plus crore One of the highest-grossing Hindi films of its time.

Expert View

Trade analysts argue that while logic took a backseat, ‘Gadar’ worked because it aligned with the post-Kargil sentiment of anger at Pakistan’s double-dealing, nationalist pride and emotional release.

Audience view

Single-screen viewers associate the film with dialogue-heavy patriotism and theatrical applause, making it a cultural memory rather than just a movie. The memes of Sunny Deol and Amrish Puri still rules the social media and wherever there is a water handpump around, people joke that Sunny Paaji will uproot and throw it.

Return of the War Epic

The announcement of ‘Border 2’ reflects Bollywood’s renewed faith in large-scale nationalist storytelling. The original ‘Border’ (1997) remains iconic for its emotional depiction of the 1971 Battle of Longewala. It is likely that the overwhelming audience response to ‘Gadar 2’ got filmmakers to encash on the original Border.

Trade Expectations

Estimated Budget: Rs.200–250 crore Strong pre-release value in satellite and digital rights Trade predicts Rs.400 crore-plus lifetime potential.

Expert View

Industry insiders say war films today must balance scale with authenticity. Emotional patriotism alone is no longer enough; audiences demand realism, technical finesse, and credibility.

Audience Mood

While older viewers expect nostalgia and patriotic music, younger audiences seek more grounded storytelling closer to an ‘Uri’ or ‘Dhurandhar.’ The memes of Varun Dhawan doing the rounds is akin to the wildly popular ‘Rehman Dakait’ character played by Akshaye Khanna in ‘Dhurandhar.’

Waves of Nationalist Cinema

From sacrifice to strategy, Hindi cinema’s nationalist storytelling has evolved alongside India’s political and military journey. Films like Chetan Anand’s gut-wrenching ‘Haqeeqat’ (1964) reflected loss and vulnerability after the 1962 Indo-Sino war. The 1970s and 80s focused on emotional sacrifice, as seen in ‘Vijeta.’ Post-Kargil, films like ‘Border’ leaned towards heroic unity. In the post-2014 phase, nationalist cinema shifted gears again to detail strategy and the efficacy of the Indian state as evinced in ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike,’ ‘Article 370,’ ‘Gadar 2’ and now ‘Dhurandhar.’

Expert Insight

Film pundits feel that for someone who has seen ‘Haqeeqat’ generations ago, may not like ‘Border 2’ and vice-versa, but there is a major chunk of the Indian audience that appreciates the craftmanship of a filmmaker making a ‘patriotic’ film, new or old. They say that nationalist-themed films themselves have moved from emotion to assertion, and now to controlled confidence.

Audience Insight

Today’s audience is more matured and tech-friendly and are keenly aware of the national and international stakes revolving around critical issues and the war dynamics. So, merely dishing out one-sided plots will not work and filmmakers cannot sell nationalist stories only on emotions as audiences today believe in the institution and not in any individual.