Bollywood’s Propaganda Machine Is Growing Stronger and Chauhaan Is Just the Latest Example

At this point, it is impossible to pretend this is accidental. Every few months, Bollywood rolls out another “historical” film dressed in grand visuals, war cries, oversized masculinity and carefully manufactured patriotism. The names change, the costumes change, the settings change, but the formula stays exactly the same. A historical figure is picked, stripped of complexity, polished into a flawless hero and then placed against an enemy who is reduced to a caricature. There is no room for contradiction, no room for context, no room for actual history. The goal is not to explore the past but to weaponise it. Ajay Devgn’s upcoming Chauhaan looks like it is following the exact same template, which is why the backlash against it feels like more than just another film controversy. People are not reacting only to the title or the teaser. They are reacting to a pattern they have been watching grow for years. They are reacting to the fact that Bollywood has increasingly stopped making historical films and started manufacturing political products.

What makes this trend dangerous is how profitable it has become. If these films were failing, maybe the damage would be limited. But they are not failing. They are thriving. The Kashmir Files earned over ₹340 crore worldwide and was marketed as hidden truth rather than cinema. The Kerala Story crossed ₹300 crore despite widespread criticism over exaggerated claims and communal framing. Tanhaji made nearly ₹370 crore, building its success on glorified war narratives and national pride. Even Samrat Prithviraj, which was considered underwhelming, still brought in over ₹90 crore. That means in just a handful of years, Bollywood has earned over ₹1,100 crore from films rooted in selective history and emotional manipulation. That number matters because it proves this is not an artistic accident. It is a market strategy. The industry knows exactly what sells. Fear sells. Nationalism sells. Religious tension sells. Outrage sells. And once something becomes profitable, it keeps getting repeated, no matter how ethically bankrupt it may be.

The bigger problem is that these films are not just entertainment. In India, cinema has always been one of the strongest tools of shaping public memory. Millions of people do not engage with history through books or archives. They learn it through films. India has over 900 million internet users, and a huge percentage of them are young. For many of them, a movie becomes their first and strongest introduction to historical events, rulers and conflicts. That means when a film distorts history, it is not just bending facts for drama. It is actively reshaping how an entire generation understands the past. And when those distortions are repeated again and again with the same ideological slant, they stop feeling like fiction. They start feeling like truth. That is where propaganda succeeds. Not when it shouts the loudest, but when it becomes normal enough that people stop questioning it. A teenager watching The Kashmir Files or The Kerala Story without context may walk away believing those narratives are complete and factual. That is terrifying because it turns cinema into ideological education.

What is even harder to ignore is the timing. There has been a visible rise in these hyper nationalistic, politically charged historical films in the last decade, especially after 2014. That does not mean every filmmaker is directly serving political power, but it does mean the industry has become increasingly aligned with dominant political sentiment. The market rewards it. Audiences are primed for it. Controversy amplifies it. The ecosystem is perfect for it. And that is why films like Chauhaan keep emerging. They are safe investments. They know how to trigger the public. They know how to create emotional binaries. They know how to package history into easy slogans. But history is not easy. History is ugly, layered and contradictory. It is full of alliances that make no sense, betrayals that complicate heroism and truths that challenge pride. Propaganda cannot survive that kind of complexity. It needs clarity. It needs purity. It needs heroes who feel untouchable and villains who feel permanently evil.

And notice who keeps getting erased in this process. While Bollywood keeps pouring money into warrior epics and nationalist dramas, stories about caste violence, labour struggles, women’s histories and minority experiences continue to be sidelined. Reports by Oxfam International and several media diversity studies have repeatedly shown that mainstream Indian storytelling still underrepresents marginalised communities. Dalit voices remain scarce. Muslim narratives are either absent or flattened into stereotypes. Queer stories still struggle for space. But when it comes to creating enemies in political cinema, Bollywood suddenly has no problem. It knows exactly how to frame certain communities when it needs a villain. That imbalance is not random. It is ideological. It reveals what the industry is comfortable amplifying and what it would rather silence.

That is why the anger around Chauhaan matters. It is not just outrage over a movie. It is the result of years of accumulated frustration. Audiences are tired of being spoon fed the same political storytelling disguised as patriotism. They are tired of seeing historical legacies reduced to simplistic weapons for modern agendas. They are tired of Bollywood pretending these films are about pride when they are often about division. Real patriotism does not need propaganda to survive. Real patriotism can handle complexity, criticism and uncomfortable truths. But what Bollywood is increasingly selling is not patriotism. It is curated rage. It is emotional manipulation packaged as heritage. It is history stripped of humanity and turned into spectacle.

The most frustrating part is that Bollywood is capable of so much better. It has the resources, the talent and the reach to tell history in ways that are nuanced, layered and honest. It can ask difficult questions instead of giving lazy answers. It can explore the past instead of exploiting it. But that would require courage. And courage does not always make ₹300 crore. Propaganda does. That is the reality. As long as audiences keep rewarding these films with blind applause, the cycle will continue. More such films. More selective memory. More ideological conditioning. More profit. But if people keep questioning, keep critiquing and keep refusing to accept propaganda as history, maybe the machine will slow down. Because history deserves more than being reduced to a box office strategy. And audiences deserve more than being manipulated into applause.