🔥 THIS ISN’T A REVIEW. THIS IS AN AUTOPSY. 🔥
Cinema becomes dangerous when it stops telling stories and starts manufacturing memory. Dhurandhar isn’t just a film—it is an ideological exercise in misdirection, one that quietly nudges blame away from power and dumps it squarely on ordinary people who were staring death in the face. The most toxic lie it normalizes is this: that the humiliation of Kandahar was caused by cowardly passengers or a weak pilot. That lie did not come from the hijackers. It came from the Sangh. And the receipts exist.
1. The lie That Refuses to Die
Let’s put this on record, clearly and permanently: the Kandahar hijackers did NOT call Hindus cowards. That label was coined, amplified, and circulated by the RSS ecosystem itself. Post-IC 814, while the nation was still reeling from trauma, the ideological machinery went to work—not against terrorists, but against victims.
2. When the RSS Chief Blamed the Public
In the immediate aftermath of the december 24, 1999 hijack, then-RSS chief Rajju Bhaiya (Rajendra Singh) wrote in Panchajanya that the episode exposed the “deep-rooted cowardice” of Hindu society. His argument was chilling in its detachment:
Had “8–10 young men” stood up to armed terrorists at 35,000 feet, history would have changed.
In one stroke, responsibility was shifted from state failure to civilian sacrifice.
3. ‘Veerta’ as Ideology, Not Reality
This wasn’t analysis—it was recruitment propaganda. The subtext was clear:
You were humiliated because you are not brave enough. Join us, and you will be.
The hijack became a marketing pitch for ideological masculinity, divorced from aviation reality, hostage psychology, or the value of human life.
4. ashok Singhal Took It Further—and Fell Flat
VHP working president Ashok Singhal escalated the narrative. Asked whether the government had shown courage, his response was stunning:
“It was not the government. The pilot should have shown courage.”
According to Singhal, Captain Devi saran should have simply refused to fly—as if aircraft command, hostage lives, and explosives obey ideological slogans.
5. When Reality Answered Back
HT reporters reached Captain Devi Saran, and his response dismantled the chest-thumping fantasy in one line:
“I don’t know who this ashok Singhal is, but he knows nothing about aviation or the value of innocent lives.”
He reminded the nation of a forgotten truth: before being a Hindu, he was a human being. Even Krishna, he said, tried every possible path to prevent bloodshed before Kurukshetra.
6. The Truth the Sangh Didn’t Want Heard
Passengers later revealed what real courage looked like. When talks collapsed on december 30 and hijackers threatened to blow up the plane mid-air, Captain saran planned a suicidal maneuver—running the aircraft to the end of the runway and crashing it into a wall so passengers could escape.
He knew he would die.
That was the plan.
That was courage.
7. The Question That Ended the Debate
Passengers asked a question the Sangh never answered:
“If Mr. Singhal is so courageous, why didn’t he come to Kandahar and fight the hijackers himself?”
After that, the rhetoric stopped. No debates. No columns. No press conferences. Silence.
8. Propaganda’s Core Trick: Blame the Powerless
What happened post-Kandahar was not patriotism—it was ideological laundering. A government failure was reframed as a societal flaw. Victims were lectured. Heroes were shamed. And accountability vanished into slogans.
9. Why ‘Dhurandhar’ Is Not Innocent
By echoing this warped moral framework—where bravery is theatrical, and caution is treason—Dhurandhar participates in the same distortion. It doesn’t interrogate power. It romanticizes recklessness and normalizes victim-blaming as nationalism.
The Final Word
Kandahar was a tragedy. But what followed was a moral collapse.
When ideology demands martyrs instead of responsibility, it is not nationalism—it is cruelty dressed as courage.
Dhurandhar wants you to feel proud.
This history demands that you feel angry.
Because the most dangerous propaganda isn’t the one that lies loudly — it’s the one that convinces you the victims were at fault.
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