I walked into the theatre more out of curiosity than conviction. The reviews of Durandhar were already trending, social media was buzzing, and long queues of self-described nationalists and patriots were forming outside cinema halls. I wanted to see for myself whether the film was mere political propaganda—or whether it dared to revisit uncomfortable truths that India has tried, for too long, to forget.
Three hours later, I walked out unsettled.
Durandhar, structured across five chapters, does not pretend to be subtle. It forces the viewer to confront a decade of governance between 2004 and 2014—years when the Congress-led UPA ruled India under Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, celebrated globally as a “Mr Clean” administrator and distinguished economist. Yet the film peels back that carefully curated image to expose what it portrays as a catastrophic erosion of India’s national security interests.
The central thesis is blunt: India’s vulnerabilities during this period were not merely the result of administrative incompetence or bad luck, but of conscious political decisions—some allegedly driven by greed, others by ideological appeasement, and many by an alarming indifference to national security.
The most striking portrayal in Durandhar concerns a powerful Congress leader who served as both Finance Minister and Home Minister. The film revisits the controversial decision to allow De La Rue, a British firm that prints high-security currency paper, to supply material to the Reserve Bank of India—despite documented knowledge that the same company also serviced Pakistan. Currency paper is not an ordinary commodity; it is a strategic national asset. Any compromise directly impacts counterfeiting, terror financing, and economic warfare.
What makes the episode even more disturbing is that De La Rue was subsequently blacklisted, only to be removed from that blacklist when the same individual returned to the finance portfolio. Durandhar goes further, alleging quid pro quo benefits involving family members. These are not inventions of cinema alone. The allegations were serious enough to invite investigations after the NDA came to power in 2014, culminating in arrests. Father and son did spend time in custody before securing bail—an outcome made possible under India’s long-standing legal doctrine that bail is the rule, jail the exception.
Yet the consequences of these policy decisions went far beyond individual accountability.
For years, India’s security agencies have flagged counterfeit Indian currency—especially ₹500 notes—as a key tool used by Pakistan to fund terror networks operating within India. Parliamentary records, intelligence briefs, and National Investigation Agency findings have repeatedly underscored how fake currency was weaponised as part of Pakistan’s long-declared strategy to “bleed India with a thousand cuts.”
It is against this backdrop that the Modi government’s 2016 decision to withdraw ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes must be viewed. Demonetisation—popularly called notebandi—was economically disruptive and operationally imperfect, but its national security objective was unambiguous: choke terror financing, dismantle counterfeit currency networks, and disrupt the cash economy that sustained organised crime and extremism.
The ferocity with which the Congress and its allies opposed the move—without proposing credible alternatives to address terror financing—only reinforced public suspicion. Durandhar draws a direct line between policy laxity, counterfeit currency circulation, and major terror attacks—from the 2001 Parliament assault to the horrors of 26/11 in Mumbai. One may debate the film’s tone, but the questions it raises are inescapable.
What stands in sharp contrast is India’s post-2014 security posture. Surgical strikes, the Balakot air action, tighter financial surveillance, stricter FDI scrutiny, and intelligence-led counterterrorism mark a decisive shift from strategic restraint to strategic assertion. This is not chest-thumping nationalism; it is corrective governance born of bitter experience.
And yet, a lingering question remains. Why have high-profile cases involving senior Congress figures—ranging from alleged money laundering to questions over foreign citizenship—not reached logical judicial closure? Is it procedural delay, institutional inertia, or political calculation? Or does the Indian state, even today, hesitate to confront entrenched political dynasties head-on?
Nations rarely fall in a single moment. They are weakened gradually—by compromised decisions, conflicted leadership, and the refusal to call betrayal by its name.
Durandhar may be a film, but its power lies in forcing a reckoning. For me, it was not just three hours in a theatre; it was a reminder of how close India may have come to strategic erosion—and how vigilance, not virtue-signalling, remains the price of national survival.
