For decades, Indian cinema has entertained audiences at home and abroad while helping construct national identity and project India’s culture. Historically, its appeal has rested on a breadth of genres, stories and creative voices capable of reaching audiences across cultural boundaries. Yet the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has coincided with an expanding genre of nationalist films and over-the-top (OTT) productions. National security, cross-border terrorism and military honour have become recurring themes. When identity politics dominates entertainment, artistic expression and social commentary risk becoming secondary to narratives that amplify nationalism and reinterpret conflicts.
Cinema reflects political and social realities, but contemporary Indian productions increasingly adopt nationalist discourse. Films such as Bard of Blood (2019), Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), The Kashmir Files (2022), Fighter (2024), Ranneeti: Balakot & Beyond (2024) and Dhurandhar (2025) share a pattern in which Pakistan, and particularly Muslims, are frequently represented as sources of instability or hostility. Right-wing media further reinforces these portrayals through television discussions. This process can turn entertainment into a vehicle for political messaging without necessarily appearing overtly political. Such framing places bilateral conflicts and internal threats within an ideological construction of national identity.
The commercial success of Uri: The Surgical Strike, released before India’s 2019 general elections, illustrates this trend. Its depiction of Indian military retaliation transformed a security operation into a narrative of nationalist pride, simplifying geopolitical fault lines into a binary between national heroes and external enemies. The Kashmir Files similarly resonated with the BJP’s political manifesto by focusing on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits and their return to IIOJ&K. Fighter, released in 2024, continued the emphasis on aerial warfare, military operations and patriotic sacrifice. In such productions, the state’s narrative becomes central to commercial storytelling, often at the expense of alternative perspectives.
India’s OTT expansion, driven by affordable mobile data and widespread internet access, initially raised hopes for greater narrative diversity. Although streaming platforms offer varied content, many prominent series have gravitated towards terrorism, espionage, intelligence operations and national security. Bard of Blood, Special Ops, Avrodh, State of Siege and IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack exemplify security-centred storytelling. While many draw upon real incidents, their framing, coupled with India’s populist political environment, can reinforce perceptions of Pakistan as a persistent source of threats.
These portrayals carry implications beyond entertainment. Media scholars have long argued that framing influences how audiences perceive and interpret political realities. Directors use shot selection, characterisation and cinematography to shape emotional responses and establish connections with their stories. Repeated associations between a country and violence can become embedded in public consciousness. Research on contemporary Indian cinema suggests that representations of social actors and events can reinforce nationalist sentiment, narrowing the space for alternative viewpoints. The concern is not that cinema addresses security threats, but that repeated, one-dimensional portrayals may discourage critical engagement with complex conflicts.
India is not unique in employing cinema as an instrument of soft power and political communication. Hollywood served as a tool of influence during the Cold War, and other countries continue to use popular culture to advance strategic narratives. What distinguishes the contemporary Indian entertainment ecosystem is the convergence of electoral politics, digital media expansion and nationalist discourse. Military victories, historical grievances and security threats have gained prominence during the Modi era. While states legitimately confront internal and external threats, problems arise when geopolitical conflicts are reduced to ideological binaries that privilege emotional mobilisation over critical reflection.
As Indian cinema and OTT platforms expand their domestic and global reach, they will continue shaping perceptions of South Asia. The challenge for filmmakers is not whether they may address national security or historical grievances, but whether they can do so while maintaining balance, artistic independence and historical responsibility. An approach allowing disagreement, ambiguity and competing experiences would better serve artistic creativity and the public’s understanding of a region marked by complicated histories. Cinema is most valuable when it encourages audiences to deliberate, question and reflect rather than merely affirm predetermined narratives. Its entertainment value should emerge from the complexity of social reality and the inclusion of multiple perspectives. In an age when screens shape political awareness as powerfully as newspapers, the line between constructive storytelling and statecraft has never been thinner.
Zaid Bin Inam
The writer is an academician and faculty member at NUML.
