-Ramphal Kataria
On 14 September 2025, India beat Pakistan in a cricket match in Dubai. What should have been remembered as sport was hijacked into yet another performance of patriotism. Anchors screamed, hashtags trended, and once again the average Indian was told: don’t watch, don’t cheer, don’t forget who the enemy is.¹
This theatre has become a ritual. In July, Indian cricket legends refused to play their semifinal against Pakistan at the World Championship of Legends (WCL). Organisers were forced to cancel the game.² Months earlier, Diljit Dosanjh’s Sardaar Ji 3 was throttled because he dared to cast Pakistani actress Hania Aamir.³ No official ban — just mobs, unions, and “sentiments.”
India today doesn’t need censorship boards. It has outsourced the job to vigilantes and news studios.
Patriotism for the Poor
This boycott culture is not patriotism; it’s patriotism-for-the-poor.
The beggar is told not to buy a Pakistani biscuit. The rickshaw driver is told not to watch a Pakistani actor. The middle-class taxpayer is told to boycott films that “insult Hindu pride.”
Meanwhile, the rich do business as usual. The government quietly deepens trade with China — the very country the Deputy Chief of Army Staff admitted was backing Pakistan with logistics and real-time intelligence during Operation Sindoor.⁴ But there are no hashtags against Beijing. No campaigns to smash Chinese phones. Why? Because China is too big to boycott.
Turkey and Azerbaijan? Easy targets. Pakistani singers? Sitting ducks. But Chinese billions? Off limits.
Bollywood’s Manufactured Patriotism
Bollywood is now split into two worlds.
On one side: propaganda factories. The Kashmir Files. The Kerala Story. The Sabarmati Report. Soon The Bengal Files and The Jodhpur Files. Each film carefully crafted to indict opposition parties, inflame communal wounds, and polish the ruling party’s narrative. These films are declared tax-free, promoted by BJP leaders, and amplified by state machinery.⁵
On the other side: films like Padmaavat, Tandav, or Sardaar Ji 3. They don’t fit the script. So mobs threaten, scenes are cut, screenings sabotaged, artists harassed. Their crime? Not following the ideological manual.⁶
And who leads this machinery? A lobby of loyalists: veteran actor Anupam Kher,Pallavi Joshi, and filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri. Their careers flourish under this “new normal.” For everyone else, silence is survival.
The Sports Circus
Sport too has been reduced to a morality play. The WCL semifinal? Cancelled. Asia Cup matches? Framed as battles for the nation’s soul.
Yet the hypocrisy is glaring. India still plays ICC tournaments where Pakistan is present. Jay Shah — son of the Home Minister and BCCI secretary — doesn’t dare push Pakistan out of global cricket.⁷ But players like Shikhar Dhawan or Irfan Pathan are paraded as patriots when they refuse to share a field.
It is not policy. It is spectacle. And like all spectacles, it is staged for the cheap seats.
Media as Nationalist Theatre
Anchors like Arnab Goswami scream at Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly: “Why are you silent? Why not boycott?” But they never question the Prime Minister, Home Minister, or Jay Shah about why India continues in tournaments with Pakistan.⁸
Hypocrisy isn’t a bug here. It’s the whole program.
Why This Is Dangerous
Cutting cultural ties doesn’t punish governments. It punishes ordinary people. Pakistani artists in Mumbai are not generals in Rawalpindi. A Pakistani actress in a film is not a terror financer.
People-to-people contact — in film, sport, music, scholarship — is not naïve liberalism. It is practical strategy. Track-two diplomacy has historically kept Indo-Pak channels alive during crises. Cancel those channels, and you gift extremists on both sides a monopoly on the narrative.⁹
Consistency or Cowardice
If boycotts are the strategy, then apply them consistently. Stop buying Chinese goods. Pull out of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Ban business with multinationals that trade in Pakistan. But the government won’t, because that would cost too much.
Instead, it is easier to bully singers, actors, and comedians. It is easier to police films and troll cricketers. It is easier to export the cost of “patriotism” onto the poor, while the elite continue to profit.
That is not patriotism. That is cowardice dressed as nationalism.
The Way Forward
If India is serious, it must:
Publish clear rules for cultural engagement, instead of letting mobs decide.
Protect artists and audiences, unless their work breaks the law.
Target real adversaries through transparent sanctions, not selective theatrics.
Invest in safe people-to-people contact, because that is what prevents demonisation from becoming permanent.
Conclusion
The choice is stark. We can keep feeding this boycott circus — where patriotism is reduced to hashtags, films are weaponised, and the poor are lectured while the powerful do deals.
Or we can grow up, apply our national interest consistently, and remember that real patriotism protects democracy, culture, and truth.
The first path leads to hypocrisy. The second, to dignity.
The question is not whether India will boycott Pakistan. The question is whether India will boycott its own hypocrisy.
Notes
1. “India Beat Pakistan by 6 Wickets in Asia Cup 2025,” ESPNcricinfo, September 14, 2025.
2. “India Legends Pull Out of Pakistan Clash, WCL Semifinal Cancelled,” The Hindu, July 11, 2025.
3. “Diljit Dosanjh’s Sardaar Ji 3 Faces Backlash over Pakistani Actress Hania Aamir,” Indian Express, March 18, 2025.
4. “China Provided Pakistan with Support During Operation Sindoor: Indian Army,” Hindustan Times, August 2025.
5. Avijit Ghosh, “Tax-Free and Touted: The Political Economy of The Kashmir Files,” Times of India, March 2022.
6. Shohini Ghosh, “Padmaavat, Censorship, and the Politics of Hurt,” Economic & Political Weekly 53, no. 6 (2018).
7. “BCCI Secretary Jay Shah Rules Out Bilateral Cricket with Pakistan,” NDTV Sports, September 2023.
8. Shailaja Bajpai, “Arnab Goswami’s Nationalist Theatre,” The Indian Express, May 2020.
9. P. R. Chari, “Track-Two Diplomacy: Lessons for Indo-Pak Relations,” Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, 2011.
