Who is the real Dhurandhar? HT decodes whether Ranveer Singh film is fact or fiction

IN a recent conversation on Hindustan Times’ demonstrate repoint dummy, executive director editor in chief Shishir Gupta sat down with Senior Anchor Aayesha Varma to unpack why a new terrorism thriller ‘Dhurandhar’ centred on 26/11 has struck such a powerful chord with Indian audiences – and how much of it is rooted in reality. What emerged was less a film review and more a hard‑hitting tour through four decades of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, India’s political responses, and the personalities now driving New Delhi’s national security doctrine.Why this film has 'clicked'Gupta’s starting point is blunt: the film works because it mirrors the angst of a majority that has lived through repeated waves of terror. He describes the movie as a “cinematic interpretation” of real events over the past 25 years – facts woven with “a bit of fantasy” to create a gripping narrative – but insists the underlying incidents are real.According to him, more than 2,000 to 3,000 innocent Indians have been killed in terror attacks in the hinterland alone in this period, with “thousands” more in Kashmir. The Hindu majority, he argues, has been “hit very hard by terrorism sponsored by Pakistan and its proxies within India,” and that lived experience is what makes audiences instinctively empathise with the director’s message. The film, in his telling, is not changing minds so much as giving cinematic expression to a sentiment already widely held.From Afghanistan to Khalistan to KashmirTo explain the film’s portrayal of Pakistan’s ISI, underworld and politicians as the main villains, Gupta goes back to 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. At that point, he says, Pakistan – backed by the US and UK – “played a double card”: fronting the anti-Soviet jihad while simultaneously using the jihadi infrastructure to escalate terrorism against India.He sketches a continuum:First, Pakistan-backed Khalistan terrorism through the 1980s and early 1990s, funded by drug money and arms smuggling.Then, from 1989 onwards, Kashmir-focused militancy, using local proxies while Islamabad described Kashmir as Pakistan’s “jugular vein” – a characterisation Gupta calls “totally incorrect.”After 9/11, a shift to “homegrown” and Islamic terror networks like the Indian Mujahideen, again leveraging the underworld and building cells in Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai, Karnataka and Kerala.He underlines Western complicity, arguing that the radicalisation pipeline – Wahhabi and Salafi ideology spread to fight the Soviets – was encouraged by major powers and then “couldn’t be controlled.”26/11: Intelligence, Failure and PoliticsThe film is centred on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and Varma presses Gupta on whether the state “failed the country” – an issue that has animated public debate since 2008. Gupta’s answer is unequivocal: there was intelligence, and it was specific.He says US agencies tipped India off about the intrusion of the ship Al-Husseini, carrying Lashkar-e-Taiba commandos, around 19–20 November – roughly six days before the attacks. That alert, he adds, was circulated by the Director of the Intelligence Bureau to all enforcement agencies, including the Maharashtra Police.What failed, in his assessment, was:The then leadership of Maharashtra Police, which did not act effectively on the warning.Operational surveillance – Coast Guard sorties from Daman tried to visually identify the ship using “door mirrors” and failed.A political establishment that had been “playing politics with terror” since 2004, focused more on vote-bank calculations than stamping out networks.For Gupta, 26/11 remains “a horrible thing that happened to India,” one the country “has not forgotten and will never forget,” and the film’s emotional power comes from reopening those wounds in a way that aligns with how many Indians saw that decade.He also describes a “vicious cycle” he believes Pakistan and its proxies exploited: radicalise, provoke riots and communal tension, escalate to terrorism – all while stoking fear within the minority community about the majority. In his framing, this was “a vicious game” rooted in a deep ideological hostility to “Hindu India.”Dawood Ibrahim, the ISI and the Karachi ProjectOne of the film’s most talked-about elements is its main underworld villain, Dawood Ibrahim, depicted as the master planner behind attacks on India. Gupta pushes back on this creative choice: Dawood is central, he says, but not omnipotent.Drawing on his own reporting, he calls Dawood “a funder of Pakistani terrorism against India,” indebted to Pakistan after being given sanctuary following the 1993 Bombay blasts that killed more than 200 people. According to Gupta, Dawood’s core role is arranging drug money for terror operations. The real operational planning, he insists, is done by the ISI and the Pakistan Army, with no meaningful separation from the political leadership. Dawood, he says, lives in Karachi, has a farmhouse near Pervez Musharraf’s outside Islamabad, and moves into ISI safe houses when pressure spikes.On the broader question of whether Pakistan has “succeeded” in terrorising India, Gupta draws a distinction between phases. He argues that in the first decade of this century, Islamabad’s “Karachi Project” – using Indian Mujahideen cells to hit soft targets nationwide between about 2004 and 2013 – did take a heavy toll, costing at least a thousand civilian lives. But beyond that period, he believes the balance shifted.Modi, surgical strikes and a beleaguered PakistanGupta credits the Modi government with dramatically altering the security landscape. He says that by the time Narendra Modi took office, many internal modules had been dismantled, leaving Pakistan with fewer local assets and pushing it towards direct attacks such as Uri, Pulwama and a recent strike in Pahalgam.He lists the Indian responses – from the Uri surgical strikes to the Balakot air strikes (referred to as “Operation Bandar/Barak”) and “Operation Sindoor” against terror camps – and makes a political claim: “only a government headed by Narendra Modi” could have ordered hits on the Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba facilities. He contrasts this with what he describes as inaction after 26/11 under the previous UPA government, despite 166 deaths and national humiliation.Today, Gupta argues, Pakistan itself is “in very, very hot waters.” He points to:A Baluch insurgency and a Pashtun insurgency.Tensions with the Afghan Taliban, which do not recognise the Durand Line and have their own territorial narratives.Separatist sentiment among Baluch and Sindhi groups seeking their own territories, leaving “bombastic Punjabi Muslims” as the visible face of the state.For him, the “real revenge” still to come is the possible abrogation of the Indus Waters Treaty, allowing India to retain more river water for its own needs – something he believes would hit Pakistan “very hard” and reflects a hardening view in Delhi that “Pakistan will never change.”Ajit Doval, Narendra Modi and India’s 'Dhurandhar'The film’s protagonist is modelled on National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, prompting Varma to ask whether he is truly the “Dhurandhar” – the mastermind – behind India’s counter-terror posture. Gupta, who has covered intelligence for decades, portrays Doval as a rare constant across many of India’s most critical security crises.He notes that Doval:Was in Kashmir when Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed Sheikh were captured.Dealt with militant commander Ilyas Kashmiri, also known as “Pir Sahib,” who slipped away from Nizamuddin railway station after a 1994 hostage incident involving four foreign nationals.Lived through Kandahar, Kargil, 9/11 and the 13 December Parliament attack, giving him a long, textured understanding of Pakistan’s ecosystem.Gupta adds three striking details: Doval, unlike some predecessors, is not a BJP member; after 26/11, the CIA’s liaison in India reportedly visited him at the Vivekananda International Foundation to warn that three Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives had been sent to eliminate him; and on 1 January 2016, Doval personally called his Pakistani counterpart, Nasir Janjua, to try to get the Pathankot attack called off – a request that “never delivered.”Yet when Varma circles back to who the “real Dhurandhar” is, Gupta is clear: in his view it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi, he argues, has empowered intelligence and enforcement agencies and built a team that can deliver on internal and external security. He highlights two key lieutenants: Home Minister Amit Shah, whom he credits with demolishing the Indian Mujahideen after the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts, and Doval, “who knows Pakistan like the back of his hand” and gives operatives the assurance that if they act in the national interest, he will stand behind them.It is this ecosystem – a hardened political will, an activist security establishment, and a public that has lived through decades of trauma – that Shishir Gupta sees reflected, if dramatised, on screen. The film, he suggests, has become a phenomenon not because it manufactures fear, but because it channels a memory India has carried, often silently, for a quarter century.