When Dhurandhar first came out, it was heavily slammed by a certain percentage of people for being a propaganda film. This belief only grew manifold when Dhurandhar: The Revenge was released in theatres, because of the way it portrayed certain political events.

The controversy had made it so that some could stand it and some couldn't.

The film was very quickly labelled as propaganda, and debate began over what qualifies as propaganda and what doesn't. In the midst of it all, Javed Akhtar stepped in to defend the film and explain why there is nothing wrong with it.

Javed Akhtar Doesn't See Anything Wrong in Propaganda

© B62 Studios

The art of storytelling comes with the freedom of showing whatever you want because it is your story at the end of the day. Javed Akhtar was amongst the guests at an award function in Kolkata and there, he talked about how anything and everything qualifies as propaganda based on subjectivity.

"I don't know what you mean by propaganda films. I loved Dhurandhar, which was an excellent film. I loved the first one more than the second one. Every story takes some stand, but does it become propaganda because the narrative isn't suited to a section of the audience? Everyone has the right to propagate their ideas. What is wrong with propaganda films? The task of every filmmaker is to present the truth. Even if the narrative of a movie is built on a fairy tale, it will have some ideology in a way."

The films, starring Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Arjun Rampal, R Madhavan, Sanjay Dutt, Danish Pandor, and Sara Arjun, were written and directed by Aditya Dhar. The duology very quickly became one of the most successful in India and across the world, representing Indian cinema on a global platform.