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War is presented as an integral part of human society. There are wars for territorial expansion, wars of resistance, punitive or wars of revenge, and wars for liberation. Some wars are fierce, aimed at annihilation of the enemy. Some are wars of attrition, much like the sieges of the past, aimed to exhaust the adversary’s capability to fight, depleting resources and morale.

Wars seem easy to start, but few know how to negotiate the peace. While there have been many truces, there have been very few successful peace treaties.

The oldest surviving peace treaty is the Treaty of Kadesh, signed around 1259-1269 BC between Egypt and the Hittites, to end a war that lasted two centuries to gain mastery over the lands of the eastern Mediterranean. The treaty was honoured until the end of the Hittite empire, 80 years later.

In Europe, the Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, ended over 100 years of wars, and established borders of sovereign states. The treaty lasted for over 150 years.

History shows that wars are easy to begin but far harder to end, yet the rhetoric of violence still prevails over the pursuit of peace today

The Misaaq-i-Medina [Charter of Medina] in 622 AD, the Treaty of Najran in 631 AD, and the Pact of Umar in 637 AD are three examples of peace treaties in early Islamic history. Non-Muslims living under Islamic rule were given religious freedom, protection of their property and places of worship. They paid a tax [jizya] for this protection and were exempted from military duty, in return for loyalty.

Under the Pax Mongolica (1279-1368) the dreaded Mongols replaced their “surrender or die” policy with administrative stability. The Mongols recognised that trade brought in more wealth than war and plunder. They protected the Silk Road, allowing for unparalleled cultural, technological and diplomatic exchanges and, over a period of time, were seamlessly absorbed into the religion and culture of the lands they occupied.

The American anthropologist Douglas P. Fry argues that war is not intrinsic to humankind. The Indus Valley Civilisation, lasting over 2,000 years, is considered one of the most peaceful, with little to no evidence of war or organised conflict. Fry has identified 74 communities today that have never experienced war. The Semai people of Malaysia living in mountain rainforests do not even have a word for war.

At the height of colonialism, voices for peace became louder. The French lawyer Emile Arnaud coined the term “pacifism” and helped establish the International Peace Bureau in 1891. Pacifism was not merely the absence of war, but a proactive commitment to creating a peaceful world.

Some years after he wrote War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy’s 1893 The Kingdom of God Is Within You became a seminal work in the pacifist movement, profoundly influencing Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance. Gandhi, associated with Satyagraha or non-violent protest, in turn influenced Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela and the many anti-war movements from the 1960s onwards. Francesco Goya’s 1820s’ Black Paintings brought home the brutal horrors of war in shocking graphic expression.

Yet, the voices that keep war alive have been louder. The US achieved peace after a brutal civil war and the European Union chose peace after centuries of war. However, while these countries established peace within, they continue to wage wars in other countries, and develop increasingly lethal weaponry and war strategies.

They fed the Cold War, ensuring the world stays divided. Any country that was different was designated as a potential threat, to be neutralised culturally and/or militarily. Countries across the world are pitted against one another and persuaded to panic-buy military equipment. Violence is glorified in cinema, street talk or disguised as corporate ambition. Three billion people play video games with an average age between 18 and 34, with war games topping the list.

The insanity and irresponsible recklessness of the US-Israeli attack on Iran at a time when the world is sickened with the genocide in Gaza is a consequence of normalising violence and dressing it up as bravado. Who pays the price? The haunting image of a distraught man holding the severed hand of a schoolgirl in Iran is a tragic symbol of who truly pays the price of war.

Until the rhetoric of violence is expunged, and peace is not seen as weakness but strength, humanity will continue to mistake destruction for power.

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 15th, 2024

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I finally watched Dhura­ndhar. For those of you who have been living under a rock and have no idea what Dhurandhar is, it’s one of the highest-grossing Indian movies in the history of Bollywood, with a second part due to come out this summer.

Set in Lyari, Karachi, Dhurandhar explores the Pakistani political scene through the eyes of an oblivious and rather fanciful Indian writer. It has an ensemble cast, including Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, Arjun Rampal, Sara Arjun, Rakesh Bedi, Gaurav Gera and Danish Pandor, some of whom play characters inspired by real-life and well-known characters from Karachi.

The trailer showed promise, and the box-office numbers prove one thing conclusively: good marketing, coupled with jingoism, sells.

I won’t get into the absurd story, the hypernationalist Indian propaganda, or the exaggerated importance of Lyari in Pakistan’s political ecosystem. That debate has already been done to death. What I will talk about is something far more basic: the glaring gaps left by director Aditya Dhar and the art direction team, led by production designer Saini S. Johray, with art directors Yogesh Bansode, Choudhari Nilesh and Neeraj Kumar Singh.

Set primarily in early 2000s Karachi, the Bollywood film Dhurandhar is one of the biggest box office earners of all time in India. However, a closer look reveals a film riddled with glaring errors, making it an unintentional comedy of errors

At times, the oversights are so obvious that it seems that, midway through the film, they all just stopped caring about details.

Before someone says it: yes, I’m deliberately not ranting about poor Urdu pronunciation (“Mai Kalochi” instead of Mai Kolachi) or hilariously incorrect wardrobes. I’m also willing to forgive geographical inaccuracies. The film was shot in Thailand; the greenery and water bodies around the Shershah Bridge, which can be seen in the film’s version of Karachi, are a limitation of location. Fine. I can live with that. My real problem here is the complete disregard for time periods and timelines.

The film opens on the day of the Mumbai terror attacks on November 26, 2008, and then jumps back to 2001, staying largely within the 2001–2002 time frame. This is where things go completely off the rails, either intentionally or due to sheer negligence. Add to that a total lack of understanding of what Pakistan had and what it absolutely did not, and you end up with Dhurandhar: a high-budget comedy of errors.

Given the film’s time frame, here are some highlights — or lowlights — of the errors in the movie:

1. A Pakistan police car in 2001 is featured in the film that Pakistan still doesn’t have. Not to mention police sedans that the police simply did not operate at the time. It was old pick-ups and Suzuki Margallas, period.

2. A bike that looks like a cousin of the Honda CBF 125 or its Chinese equivalents, launched globally post-2010 and in Pakistan around 2015. That’s a casual 15-year slip. Similarly, Toyota Vigos (AN10/20), which were launched in 2005, and Revos from 2015 are sprinkled generously for good measure.

3. Jameel Jamali, played by Rakesh Bedi, clearly modelled on politician Nabeel Gabol, who was born and raised in Lyari, is seen driving a Mercedes-Maybach S-Class (W222). Its production began in 2015. The Maybach badge shown didn’t even exist in that form in 2001.

4. Rehman Dakait, played by the now very viral Akshaye Khanna, the leader of the Baloch gang who formed the Peoples Aman Committee, gifts Hamza Ali Mazari (Ranveer Singh), the protagonist — an undercover Indian intelligence agent who is sent to Lyari to stop possible future attacks on his country — a Royal Enfield 650 Twin. This is a bike that was launched in 2018. The film overshoots the timeline by 17 years.

5. Jameel Jamali, upon someone’s mention of Superintendent of Police Chaudhry Aslam (Sanjay Dutt), quips with humour, “Aslam kaun? Atif Aslam?” Atif Aslam’s debut song (as part of the band Jal) Aadat was released in December 2003. Atif Aslam did not exist in the national consciousness in 2001. And let’s not forget Chaudhry Aslam’s intro scene, which features a 2007 Land Cruiser and a 2016 Revo pick-up.

6. Using Rs1,000 currency notes that were introduced in 2005. Pre-2005 notes were larger and looked completely different.

7. An AR-15 style rifle is used in the gang-wars — a platform that only became widely common after the Iraq War, post-2003.

8. Dubai Airport is shown with Terminal 3 and the modern Dubai Airport logo. Terminal 3 opened in 2008.

9. Casually, one day, Hamza picks up Jameel Jamali’s daughter, Yalina, played by Sarah Arjun, from her house in Karachi on his bike and, in the very next scene, they’re in a high-altitude, Indus-side landscape that looks suspiciously like Skardu. The bike is still there, so no, they didn’t fly. Minutes later, he drops her back home. This means they had casually ridden from Karachi to Skardu (over 2,000 km by road) and back in a day on a bike, and still had time for romance.

10. Casio G-Shock watches from 2013–2015 being worn in early-2000s Karachi. A touchscreen iPhone (from the iPhone 4S era) casually appears as well. In fact, this was peak Nokia 3310 phone time. And in a 2009 scene, Jamali is using the same phone his daughter was using in 2001. Eight years later. Same model. Same world. Apparently, phones in this universe age better than humans.

Last but not least, the biggest and funniest goof-up: during a scene, the on-screen text reads “Aqib Ali Zanwari”, while the banner behind clearly says “Asif Ali Zardari.”

This scene passed through the director, editor, production designer, art directors, colourist, post-production, actors during dubbing, and studio approvals. No one thought, “Maybe we should make the name on the banner and the text match”? This is literally a 10-minute post-production fix.

Every other day, I see posts praising the film’s “peak detailing.” People cite things like how trained assassins grip guns versus street criminals. Honestly, that’s laughable. The director and art directors may have their own set of strengths, but attention to detail is not one of them.

Ultimately, Dhurandhar was a disappointment, except for the last half-hour climax and a kick-ass soundtrack, which genuinely worked. The rest felt like a film that wanted applause for realism… while being spectacularly careless about it.

The writer is a filmmaker, creative director and branded content specialist with over 20 years of experience across South Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached at sami.qahar@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 15th, 2026

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