The Dhurandhar movie controversy has sparked intense debate in Pakistan, particularly over its portrayal of Karachi’s historic neighborhood, Lyari. While the film claims to be fictional, its realistic depiction has raised concerns about selective representation, stereotypes, and how real communities are remembered on screen.
Is Dhurandhar Based on a True Story?
From its arrival, Dhurandhar promised intensity, ambition, and realism. This realism extended beyond performances and plot into geography itself. Karachi, and especially Lyari, is not just a setting but a presence in the film.
The discomfort surrounding the movie is not driven by outrage alone. It is driven by recognition. The story feels familiar enough that audiences begin to treat it as representative truth. This is where the tension lies.
When Fiction Feels Familiar: Why the Dhurandhar Movie Feels Real
Officially, Dhurandhar is a fictional narrative. The producers have repeatedly stated that it is not based on a specific mission or real individual. However, the film borrows heavily from lived textures. Language, locations, atmosphere, and social dynamics mirror reality closely enough to blur the line between imagination and documentation.
How Realism in Dhurandhar Shapes Audience Perception:
It is almost as gripping as an espionage movie for those who are not familiar with this region. It is almost as if they are living through those events in Lyari. It is this familiarity with Lyari as a locality in Karachi where they find themselves in an uneasy situation.
What is disturbing is not that there is representation of Lyari. What is disturbing is that a single narrative of Lyari can be the only narrative of that place.
Lyari Before the Headlines: The Real History Behind the Dhurandhar Controversy
Before Lyari became synonymous with unrest in news cycles, it was just a locality. It is one of the oldest localities in Karachi. It has existed even before the expansion of the megapolis called Karachi. It is a locality founded by communities who migrated with just labor, language, and the desire to remain.
What Lyari Was Like Before Media Stereotypes:
Lyari has always been a working-class area. Its streets were created by dockworkers, artisans, businesspeople, and families who networked their way through collaboration. Neighborhoods knew each other by name, dined together, celebrated their neighborhood weddings, spilled into alleys, mourned their funerals.
This feeling of community is not merely tangential to Lyari. Rather, it is fundamental.
Culture-wise, Lyari has always been rich. Baloch culture comes with Sindhi culture. They have been enriched by communities of African descent who brought songs and dance. People were extremely politically conscious. This was not a quiet neighborhood. This questioned and debated and organized.
For more reflections on Pakistani culture and heritage, see Sunday’s Culture section: https://sunday.com.pk/category/lifestyle/culture/
The Weight of Selective Memory in the Dhurandhar Movie:
The tough pages of Lyari’s history exist in truth. To ignore them would be to be disingenuous. Like many other urbane areas across the world, Lyari’s trajectory has been defined by neglect, politics, and a lack of governmental support when it mattered most. When opportunities dwindled, vacuums full of tension remained.
However, those years are not the full story of Lyari.
How Selective Storytelling Shapes Public Perception:
Often left out of the equation, though, is the fact that suffering doesn’t extinguish humanity. There were moments of everyday existence even during the toughest periods. There were children attending school. There were vendors unlocking the shutters of their shops. There were families celebrating births and mourning deaths.
“These quieter truths rarely make it to the screen.”
Football in Lyari: The Untold Story Missing From Dhurandhar
Euell Johnson,
Ask anyone who is familiar with Lyari about the nature of the area, and they could easily ignore the aspect of conflict. They would talk about football.
In a land where cricket reigns supreme, the pulse of Lyari was different. Football was the language. Children spoke this language on cramped streets and empty plots where the ball could roll. Tournaments were held. Triumphs were shared.
Why Football Became Lyari’s Symbol of Hope:
Football was about discipline, hope, and self-definition with no links to fear. It was hope for the young people as it constituted a sense of identity or belonging among them. To many, it was the demonstration of the capability of the neighborhood to produce not just talent, but headlines too.
This side of Lyari is very much experienced and loved, but never very much represented in the typical narratives.
Why the Dhurandhar Movie Sparked Controversy in Pakistan:
“The controversy surrounding Dhurandhar is neither about censorship nor about denial. It is about balance.”
Why Pakistani Audiences Reacted Strongly to Dhurandhar?
When films are inspired by real locations, especially if said locations are already beset by negative stereotypes, having representation matters. Audiences abroad might not distinguish between where the truth lies. The truth told often makes it seem real.
“For the Pakistani audience,” Khwaja says, “instead of the struggle depicted on the show being recognized, the fear is of it being presented without context. That the place gets frozen in time on the basis of the toughest period it went through and doesn’t have the possibility to develop or grow.”
This is where the controversy is. Not in anger, but in exhaustion.
While Dhurandhar sparked debate, other films like the hit Punjabi film Sardaar Ji 3 have been widely appreciated for their storytelling: . https://sunday.com.pk/entertainment/cultural-shockwave-sardaar-ji-3-storms-pakistani-theaters-meet-hania-aamir/
Lyari as a City Within Karachi: More Than Shown in Dhurandhar
Karachi itself is also misunderstood. Karachi is not one place; it is several layered together. Lyari is one of the emotional centers of Karachi. One cannot possibly understand Karachi without Lyari.
Lyari has produced artists, athletes, activists, and commoners whose lives embody resilience as opposed to ruin. Its people are aware of how the world perceives their community, so many of them bear the weight of_correcting these impressions in their personal lives.
“But they are not asking for the rejection of history. Instead, they are asking for recognition of evolution.”
Cinema and Responsibility: Representation and the Dhurandhar Film Debate
Films have always employed actual locations to add authenticity. This is quite common. However, with a globalized and ubiquitous media setup, news travels and lingers for an extended period. Perhaps one image can mold the perception of a whole world, thousands of miles away.
This is not an argument for avoiding complex spaces in film. It is an argument that complexity should be present. Lyari is not one thing. It never was.
What the Dhurandhar Movie Doesn’t Show About Lyari Today:
To be in Lyari in the present and to experience the environment would be to experience a different story altogether from the one expected. The markets are full of people. There are tea stalls with regulars at the cafes. There are children playing openly in the streets. There are functional schools with people investing in their futures.
There is pride in Lyari. A silence and a strength. Pride in living. Pride in culture. Pride in being part of a people who have had their share of confusion and misconception.
Why the Dhurandhar Movie Controversy Matters Beyond Cinema?
It is important because it is more than one film. It is the story of how all narratives are created and retold. It is an issue of who decides what is what in terms of definition and how long that definition is valid.
“Lyari neither disclaims being showcased through films. It wants to be seen in its entirety. With history acknowledged, the present accepted, and the future undetermined,” he said.
A Story Still Being Written: Lyari’s Future Beyond the Dhurandhar Movie:
The Dhurandhar controversy is ultimately about who gets to define a place and for how long. Lyari does not reject being portrayed on screen. It asks to be seen in its entirety. With its past acknowledged, its present recognized, and its future left open.
Lyari is not an icon or a metaphor. It is a neighborhood. It is home. And like all real places, it deserves to be known for more than one chapter.
Our Commonly Asked Questions?
Indian Bollywood film Dhurandhar has been banned across all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states for promoting an anti-Pakistan narrative. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have refused to screen the movie, saying it carries content that misrepresents Pakistan.
The main character is Hamza Ali Mazari / Jaskirat Singh, played by Ranveer Singh. He is an Indian spy on a high-stakes mission in Karachi.
⦁ Sanjay Dutt as Chaudhry Aslam (police officer)
⦁ R. Madhavan as Senior Intelligence Strategist
⦁ Arjun Rampal as Major Iqbal (ISI officer)
⦁ Sara Arjun as Yalina Jamali (emotional human perspective)
⦁ Gaurav Gera as Aalam, and Naveen Kaushik as Donga
The movie was shot in multiple locations including Thailand, Punjab, Mumbai, Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh.
Dhurandhar has been banned in Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait because of its politically sensitive content, which has ignited a debate over the film’s hypernationalist stance.
