In a recent conversation on Hindustan Times Channel’s Point Blank programme, Executive Editor Shishir Gupta sat with Senior anchor Aisha Varma To explain why the new 26/11-themed terror thriller ‘Dhurandhar’ has struck such a strong chord with Indian audiences – and how much it is rooted in reality. What resulted was less a movie review than a challenging tour through four decades of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, India’s policy responses, and the figures now leading New Delhi’s national security doctrine.
Why did this movie “click”?
Gupta’s starting point is straightforward: the film succeeds because it reflects the anxiety of the majority who have experienced repeated waves of terrorism. He describes the film as a “cinematic interpretation” of true events over the past 25 years – facts woven with “a little bit of fiction” to create an engaging story – but insists the underlying events are real.
According to him, 2,000 to 3,000 innocent Indians were killed in terrorist attacks in remote areas alone during this period, in addition to “thousands” more in Kashmir. He says the Hindu majority has been “deeply affected by terrorism sponsored by Pakistan and its proxies inside India,” and that lived experience is what makes viewers instinctively empathize with the director’s message. The film, in its telling, does not so much change ideas as give cinematic expression to already widespread feelings.
From Afghanistan to Khalistan to Kashmir
To explain the film’s depiction of the ISI, the underworld, and its politicians as the main villains, Gupta goes back to 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At that point, he says, Pakistan – with US and UK support – played a “double card”: countering jihad against the Soviets while simultaneously using the jihadi infrastructure to escalate terrorism against India.
Draw a continuum:
- First, Pakistan-backed Khalistan terrorism during the 1980s and early 1990s, financed by drug money and arms smuggling.
- Then, from 1989 onwards, militancy focused on Kashmir, using local proxies, while Islamabad described Kashmir as the “vein” of Pakistan – a description Gupta called “completely untrue”.
- Post 9/11, they turned to ‘homegrown’ and Islamist terror networks such as the Indian Mujahideen, once again tapping into the underworld and building cells in Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai, Karnataka and Kerala.
He emphasizes Western complicity, claiming that the pipeline of extremism – the Wahhabi and Salafist ideology that spread to fight the Soviets – was encouraged by major powers and then “could not be controlled.”
11/26: Intelligence, failure and politics
The film centers on the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, and Varma presses Gupta on whether the state has “failed the country” – an issue that has sparked public debate since 2008. Gupta’s answer is unequivocal: there was intelligence, and it was specific.
He says US agencies informed India about the storming of the ship Al-Husseini, which was carrying Lashkar-e-Taiba commandos, around November 19-20 – roughly six days before the attacks. He adds that the Director of Intelligence Bureau has circulated this alert to all law enforcement agencies, including the Maharashtra Police.
What he failed to evaluate is:
- The then Maharashtra Police Command, which did not act effectively on the warning.
- Operations Control – Coast Guard sorties attempted and failed to ensure visual identification of the vessel using “door mirrors”.
- The political establishment, which has been “playing politics with terrorism” since 2004, has focused more on vote bank accounts rather than eliminating networks.
Gupta argues that 26/11 remains “a terrible thing that happened to India,” something that “the country has never forgotten and will never forget,” and the emotional power of the film comes from reopening those wounds in a way that matches the number of Indians who witnessed that decade.
He also describes a “vicious cycle” that he believes Pakistan and its proxies have exploited: radicalization, fomenting riots and sectarian tension, and escalation into terrorism – all while creating fear within the minority community about the majority. In his framing, this was a “evil game” rooted in deep ideological hostility to “Hindu India.”
Dawood Ibrahim, ISI and Karachi Project
One of the most talked-about elements of the film is the underworld’s main villain, Dawood Ibrahim, who is portrayed as the main planner behind the attacks on India. Gupta rejects this creative choice: David is a central person, he says, but he is not omnipotent.
Based on his own reporting, Dawood has been described as a “financier of Pakistani terrorism against India”, indebted to Pakistan after being granted safe haven in the wake of the 1993 Bombay bombings that killed more than 200 people. According to Gupta, Dawood’s primary role is to arrange drug money for terrorist operations. He insists that real operational planning is done by the ISI and the Pakistani army, without any meaningful separation from the political leadership. He says Dawood lives in Karachi, has a farm near Pervez Musharraf’s home outside Islamabad, and moves to ISI safe houses when the pressure rises.
On the broader question of whether Pakistan “succeeded” in terrorizing India, Gupta distinguishes between stages. He claims that in the first decade of this century, Islamabad’s “Project Karachi” – using Indian Mujahideen cells to strike soft targets across the country between 2004 and 2013 – took a heavy toll, costing the lives of at least a thousand civilians. But after that period, the balance is believed to have changed.
Modi, surgical strikes, and a beleaguered Pakistan
Gupta credits the Modi government with bringing about a radical change in the security landscape. He says that by the time Narendra Modi took office, many internal units had been dismantled, leaving Pakistan with fewer local assets and pushing it towards direct attacks such as Uri, Pulwama and the recent strike in Pahalgam.
He lists Indian responses – from surgical strikes in Uri to air strikes in Balakot (referred to as “Operation Bandar/Barak”) and “Operation Sindoor” against terror camps – and makes a political claim: “Only the government headed by Narendra Modi” could have ordered strikes on JeM camps in Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba installations. He contrasts this with what he describes as the post-26/11 inaction under the previous United Progressive Alliance government, despite 166 deaths and national humiliation.
Gupta says that Pakistan itself today is “in very hot waters.” He points out:
- Baloch rebellion and Pashtun rebellion.
- Tensions with the Afghan Taliban, which do not recognize the Durand Line and have their own regional narratives.
- Separatist sentiments between Baloch and Sindhi groups seeking territory of their own, making the “flowery Punjabi Muslims” the visible face of the state.
For him, the “real revenge” yet to come is the potential cancellation of the Indus Waters Treaty, allowing India to retain more of the river’s water for its own needs – something he believes will hit Pakistan “very hard” and reflects a hard-line view in Delhi that “Pakistan will never change.”
Ajit Doval, Narendra Modi and India’s Durandhar
The film’s hero is modeled on National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, leading Varma to question whether he is really the “dhurandhar” – the mastermind – behind India’s counter-terrorism stance. Gupta, who has covered intelligence for decades, portrays Doval as a rare constant in many of India’s most serious security crises.
He points out that Duval:
- He was in Kashmir when Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed Sheikh were arrested.
- Militant leader Ilyas Kashmiri, also known as “Pir Sahib”, who escaped from Nizamuddin railway station after a 1994 hostage incident involving four foreign nationals, was dealt with.
- He lived in Kandahar, Kargil, the events of September 11 and the attack on Parliament in 13 December, giving him a long and solid understanding of Pakistan’s ecosystem.
Gupta adds three striking details: Doval, unlike some of his predecessors, is not a member of the BJP; After 26/11, the CIA representative in India reportedly visited him at the Vivekananda International Foundation to warn that three LeT activists would be sent to eliminate him; On January 1, 2016, Doval personally called his Pakistani counterpart, Nasir Janjua, to try to call off the Pathankot attack – a request that “was never fulfilled.”
However, when Varma returns to who the “real Durandar” is, Gupta is clear: in his view it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He says Modi has empowered intelligence and law enforcement agencies and built a team capable of providing internal and external security. He highlights two key aides: Home Minister Amit Shah, who is credited with destroying Indian Mujahideen after the 2008 Ahmedabad bombings, and Doval, who “knows Pakistan like the back of his hand” and assures agents that if they act in the national interest, he will stand behind them.
It is this ecosystem – sclerotic political will, an activist security establishment, and a public that has lived through decades of trauma – that Shishir Gupta sees reflected, if represented, on screen. He points out that the film has become a phenomenon not because it creates fear, but because it conveys a memory that India has carried, often silently, for a quarter of a century.
