Partition was wrong. Pakistan instigated and then fought four wars against India. Pakistan sends terrorist into India – particularly Kashmir. India is big, Pakistan is small. India is good, Pakistan is bad. These enduring themes have shaped Indian cinema and Bollywood since 1947.
Shah Rukh Khan's "Jawan" (2023) and Siddharth Anand's "Fighter," starring Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, and Anil Kapoor, uphold the established tradition of Indian cinema with a focus on Pakistan-centric themes. Indian filmmakers, seemingly influenced by their Hollywood big-bros, who have produced numerous action films rooted in American exceptionalism and conceived perhaps to rationalize, even glamorize, United States' foreign policy, consistently maintain this trend. The James Bond series, Rambo series, and Mission Impossible series, for instance, depict characters from rival nations such as Russia, China, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, and Mexico in negative roles as villains.
This trend in Indian cinema, inspired by Hollywood, has endured since Partition.
However, Pakistan is not the sole target in this narrative. Just before the India-China war of 1962, Dev Anand's "Hum Dono" (The Two of Us) was released in 1961. The plot revolves around two identical brothers, both army officers stationed on the China-India border just before a full-scale war erupts. The elder brother dies, leaving the younger one in a precarious situation when delivering the news to the widow.
Two years later, in 1963, Dev Anand created another film on the theme of Partition, "Tere Ghar ke Samne" (Facing Your House). The protagonist, an architect, is tasked with building two identical houses facing each other, following instructions from both his father and the father of the woman he loves. Both fathers share a love-hate relationship – they despise each other, but cannot live apart. This metaphorically reflects the relationship between India and Pakistan, two neighbouring nations born of the same mother, India, but remaining daggers drawn with each other. In these films, love is portrayed as a remedy to heal wounds.
After the Hindu supremacist right-wing Modi’s BJP, backed by the paramilitary organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), came into power in 2014, Bollywood cinema has taken a more aggressive stance on Pakistan.
However, the softer approach to this matter changed after the wars between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. In Rajesh Khanna’s superhit film, “Aradhna” (1971), war looms in the backdrop of an intense romance. The hero – an Indian Airforce pilot – loses his life in an air combat mission against Pakistan. Pakistan-centric plot elements became more pronounced in Bollywood after Kashmiris started demanding a plebiscite for independence from India in the 1980s. A notable film of that time was “Border” (1997), directed by J. P. Dutta. Featuring Sunny Deol and Jackie Shroff, Border depicts the ground battle between India and Pakistan on the Rajasthan front during the 1971 war. After the Kargil War of 1998, Dutta embarked on another project "LOC: Kargil" in 2003. Following this, several films were produced on the theme of the Kashmir freedom movement and the Kargil War, with many featuring Sunny Deol in leading roles.
The International Movie Database (IMDb) has listed 35 films produced by Indian filmmakers that target Pakistan with various themes. Twenty-eight of these films were released after 2014, after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India. Charged with immense nationalism, these films portray Indian soldiers as valiant, with India emerging triumphant against Pakistan in fictional battlefields. Most of the films in IMDb's list revolve around counterintelligence operations in the disputed Kashmir valley, annexed by India by abrogating Article 370, which provided special status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir in 2019 – a decision subsequently upheld by the Indian Supreme Court in 2023.
After the Hindu supremacist right-wing Modi’s BJP, backed by the paramilitary organization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), came into power in 2014, Bollywood cinema has taken a more aggressive stance on Pakistan. The success of anti-Pakistan fervour in the films testifies to the extreme xenophobia among common Indians, that one may be compelled to assume, has been engineered and infused by the Modi regime.
The popularity of these films with the Indian audience reflects on the anti-Pakistan sentiment prevailing in India. To satisfy the anti-Pakistan sentiment of the audience, more often than not, these films show a Pakistani girl falling for an Indian guy, as happens in Jawan.
Recent releases, such as Jawan and, notably, Fighter – announced in 2021 – come after Indian Air Force fighter jets were shot down by Pakistan during a response to an Indian airstrike in Balakot, Pakistan, in 2019. During this event, Pakistan also captured an Indian pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. This incident brought embarrassment against the Modi government and raised several questions about the capability of the Indian Air Force. Fighter seems to be an attempt to portray events favourably from the Indian perspective. Following the Bollywood tradition of emulating Hollywood, this film appears to have adopted the look and style of Hollywood's Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
The popularity of these films with the Indian audience reflects on the anti-Pakistan sentiment prevailing in India. To satisfy the anti-Pakistan sentiment of the audience, more often than not, these films show a Pakistani girl falling for an Indian guy, as happens in Jawan. Prior to this, Agent Vinod (2012) too is an example, among others. By doing this, again, the Bollywood filmmakers trail after their Hollywood big-bros, who have shown girls from rival nations romancing with James Bond, Rambo, and other action movies. By doing so, Hollywood and Bollywood cinemas indulge in the objectification of women – the heroes win them as trophies upon the accomplishment of their missions. In other words, the enemy’s women are shown as spoils of the war, in the medieval tradition. It, nevertheless, remains a matter of surprise as no liberal or feminist voices are raised against such portrayals of women from rival nations.
One must not overlook the fact that Hollywood and Bollywood stand as the two preeminent commercial cinemas in the world. Their producers craft content that resonates most with the market. It can be inferred, therefore, from the abundance of anti-Pakistan films produced by the Bollywood industry giants, that this theme is a top-selling commodity on the cinematic shelf. Regarding the debate on whether cinema shapes society or merely reflects it, cinema scholars and researchers are free to draw their own conclusions.