Modern Jihad: War of Narratives
(Chapter 2)
Modern wars are fought at every front. Narrative formation is one such front. For decades we were shown movies that showed Pakistan in colours of glory. It was shown as a place which was just like India. In a series of articles on Pakistan I have demonstrated, with references, that Pakistan may have originated by partition of India, today it is the place which is nothing like India. These article cover all walks of life in Pakistan.
Yet we were shown Hindi movies which showed that a Pakistan was just like India. It’s people are peace loving. Its Government want good relations with India. India’s R&AW and Pakistan ISI fight and romance together with a rogue element of India’s army in movie ‘Pathan’. Tiger Jinda Hai, Bajrangi Bhaijaan were also spreading similar propaganda.
The filmmakers glossed over the Pakistani jinx which dooms leaders and reformers to betrayal or elimination, fostering military dominance and weak civilian rule. This perpetuates cycles of coups, rigged elections, and insurgencies (e.g., TTP, BLA), as seen in 2024-2025 escalations, risking further ethnic fractures like the 1971 Bangladesh split.
Least of all, there is not a whisper for the motto of Pakistan army. Do you know the motto? Hindi Movie Dhurandhar not only explains it, shows how it operates at ground level but also gives it’s civilizational answer. Let me explain in detail.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge and Its Subtitles in the End.
Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026) is completing its four week debut in a few days. The box office performance of both the Dhurandhar movies is mind boggling. Take a look at the performance.
Box Office Performance
Dhurandhar (2025) grossed ₹1,350.83 crore worldwide (net ₹1,056.62 crore India + ₹293.03 crore overseas). Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026) looks at ₹3,000 crore worldwide by its fourth weekend, with ₹75 crore from previews, ₹1,006 crore in week one. It now holds records like highest opening (₹196–240 crore) and first Hindi film grossing over ₹1,000 crore.
The numbers are unprecedented. The viewership is stupendous in scale. The success is astounding. Popularity of movie is mind boggling. The filmmakers are watching the movie over and over to find what Dhar has done. But real message is in the narrative which extends from first scene to the subtitles in the last.
The Plot
In First the story follows Hamza (originally Jaskirat Singh Rangi), who joins gangster Rehman Dacait’s mafia after a traumatic past in India involving family violence. He navigates gang rivalries, builds a romance with Yalina (daughter of politician Jameel Jamali).
Dhurandhar: The Revenge (Dhurandhar 2) is the 2026 sequel to the 2025 film. It continues the story of undercover Indian agent Hamza Ali Mazari (Ranveer Singh) who consolidates power after Rehman Dakait’s death. He faces Major Iqbal (Arjun Rampal), SP Chaudhary Aslam (Sanjay Dutt), and others while targeting Dawood Ibrahim. The sequel incorporates events like Operation Lyari and 2016 demonetisation, ending the duology with mid- and post-credits scenes.
Did You Get the Message?
The Credit Scenes
Those who got up and left while credits were displayed will be disappointed. Dhar hid his most devastating argument at the very end for the audience patient enough to stay.
A whole batch of trainees of army trained for infiltration into Pakistan as agents. They are taught namaz with some specific details. And they are taught ‘Balidan’ Sacrifice for the country. Balidan is written on black t-shirts they are wearing.
It is devastating to the morale of jihadi and an elegant reply to jihad fi sabiullah which is motto of Army of Pakistan.
Balidan for the nation.
Dhar trained his fictional Indian agents to pray namaz, to blend into Pakistani society as Muslims, and then taught them Balidan, Sanskrit for sacrifice, as their final and highest obligation. Not Jihad Fi Sabiullah.
The Theological Inversion
Look at the theological inversion. The Pakistani Army’s motto promises Paradise in exchange for killing. Dhar’s Indian agents are taught the same surface ritual, namaz, but their deepest commitment is to a secular Sanskrit concept of sacrifice that has no promise of paradise, no divine exchange, no guaranteed reward. They sacrifice because the nation requires it. Full stop.
This destroys the jihadi recruiting argument at its root. The argument has always been: why would a man die for a secular state that offers him nothing beyond death? Gazwa-e-Hind offers Paradise. What does India offer?
Dhar’s answer is Balidan. The willingness to sacrifice without divine transaction. Without promised reward. Without paradise. Simply because it is necessary.
That is not just a film scene. That is a civilisational argument made in three minutes of closing credits.
The jihadi fights for Allah’s promise. The Dhurandhar fights because someone has to. That distinction is the entire ideological contest between the two projects compressed into a single word shown during the subtitles that most people would have left before seeing.
That is what silenced not only the critics but also the prominent stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan. Notably, none of these three most prominent Muslim stars in Bollywood publicly engaged with a film whose central ideological argument directly addresses jihadi theology.
Civilisational Understanding of Balidan.
In symbolic way this has been shown in many Hindi movies where wife gives her small rather tiny box of sindoor to army man husband saying that she will apply when he returns and he should not worry about her as she has already given up on his life. There is a popular story in which a rajput princes severed her head and sent to husband so that he may not be infatuate about her and may devote to war.
Sacrifice is not a transaction. It is a consecration. The wife who withholds sindoor is not abandoning hope. She is releasing her husband from the weight of her survival so he can be fully present to his duty. She takes the burden of his death onto herself so he does not have to carry it into battle.
The Rajput princess who severed her head and sent it to her husband did something theologically opposite to the jihadi promise. The jihadi is promised that his sacrifice will be rewarded with paradise and houris. The princess removed the very object of earthly desire from the equation entirely. She did not promise him paradise. She freed him from attachment.
Nishkama Karma
This is the Gita’s argument. Act without attachment to reward. Nishkama karma. Do what is required because it is required. Not because Allah has purchased your life in exchange for paradise as At-Tawbah 9:111 states. But because duty exists independent of reward.
Dhar understood that the deepest answer to Jihad Fi Sabiullah is not a counter-theology. It is the demonstration of a civilisation that produced the sindoor scene, the Rajput princess, and the word Balidan, all pointing to the same understanding: that the highest sacrifice carries no invoice.
The jihadi fights with a contract in after life. The Dhurandhar fights with a consecration.
That distinction is ten thousand years old. Dhar put it in the closing credits of a commercial Hindi movie.
In the next chapter we shall revisit Jihad with more details.
References:
- The official motto of the Pakistan Army is “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah” (Faith, Piety, Struggle in the name of God) https://joinpakarmy.gov.pk/motto
- At-Tawbah 9:111: https://quran.com/at-tawbah/111 reads: “Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties in exchange for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah, so they kill and are killed. It is a true promise binding upon Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Quran. So rejoice in your transaction which you have contracted. And it is that which is the great attainment.”