How Aditya Dhar navigated propaganda allegations about Uri

Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar, starring Ranveer Singh in the lead role, is a humongous hit at the box office, but the film is not without its detractors. Many have dissed the film for its apparent agenda in favour of the ruling government. The criticis point to how the film panders to Narendra Modi and his 'Ghar me ghus ke marenge' rhetoric against terrorism in Pakistan, while criticising the Congress-led government for its non-violent stance against the same issue. Now, this is not the first such allegation against the Dhurandhar director.

When Uri: The Surgical Strike came out in theatres in 2019, there were similar accusations against the filmmaker, although the Vicky Kaushal starrer became a box office success. For example, while speaking to CNN News18's Rajeev Masand, the filmmaker addressed these reservations towards his film.

Speaking about the alleged propaganda in Uri, a film that hit theatres around the 2019 General elections, Aditya Dhar said that the producers decided the release date purely with the economical factors of the industry in mind. The filmmaker defended Uri amidst the criticism, claiming that those who actually watched the film would realise that it offered a "balanced perspective" about terrorism and related political aspects.

For the uninitiated, the Vicky Kaushal starrer tells the story of the retaliatory surgical strikes following the 2016 Uri terrorist attack. Referring to it, Aditya said that the film "chronologically tells what had happened in those 10, 11 days." He added, "If the decision was taken by the current government, how I negate or bypass that? I have to show it."

The filmmaker argued that if audiences found it a propaganda film, in spite of the aforementioned, it was purely down to their individual biases. "If somebody still feels it is a propaganda, then, might be that in their head, they have already decided (that it is the case)."