“Everything about the Army was projected correctly and reflected in a proper manner in the film”

During the making of the film Dhurandhar, we ensured that everything about the Army was projected correctly and reflected in a proper manner,” Colonel Bhupinder Shahi (retd), who was engaged as a military consultant for the newly released Bollywood blockbuster movie said.

“In the world of military-based cinema, where every salute, every uniform detail, every battlefield tactic and every word spoken by a soldier must resonate with realism, the role of a military consultant, though often overlooked, becomes crucial,” Col Shahi told The Tribune.

“On the set, the military consultant becomes the moral compass and technical expert who trains actors in battlecraft, fieldcraft, communication protocols and body language, guiding the filmmaker through the nuances of military culture, chain of command, unit cohesion and the psychological makeup of a soldier,” he added. It also involves collaborating closely with costume designers and art directors for visual accuracy.

This was his ninth such project. Dhurandhar has been filmed extensively in Ladkah, where Col Shahi has served for eight years. “It is an authentic film and everything that has been depicted actually happened,” he remarked. Dhurandhar, meaning ‘Stalwart’ is a Hindi spy action thriller portraying a decade-long Indian intelligence operation where an undercover agent infiltrates Karachi’s criminal and political underworld.

Besides deployment in conflict areas like Kargil and Kashmir as well as counter insurgency environment, Col Shahi has also had stints with the National Security Guard and the Ladakh Scouts.

Commissioned into the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles in 1991, he took premature retirement in 2017 and after settling down in Mohali, has been involved as a consultant on matters involving the military in films. After retirement he initially worked with a travel firm and is presently an entrepreneur.

“My cinematic journey began with the film Shershah, which set a new benchmark for military accuracy in Indian cinema,” Col Shahi said. “In 2017, while serving in Leh, Maj Gen YK Joshi, who later became the Northern Army Commander, asked me to provide assistance to the makers of the movie which was based on the life of Capt Vikram Batra,” he said.

Captain Batra was posthumously decorated with the Param Vir Chakra in the 1999 Kargil conflict. “Vikram had served under me at the regimental center in Jabalpur and we had proceeded to the Kargil battle zone together,” he said. “We wrote the script for the film in Leh and then went to Vikram’s home town in Himachal Pradesh to collect more details about his life,” he added.

Kill, Veda, Freedom at Midnight, Waking of a Nation and Fauj are among other projects that Col Shahi has worked with. He started working on Dhurandhar in 2024 after being approached by an executive producer, Rahul Gandhi.

His task primarily for Dhurandhar was to help the movie producers get the required permissions from the Army and the Indian Air Force (IAF), and ensure that the script portrays the services in the correct, realistic and positive manner. He was responsible for liaising with the Army and Air Headquarters for the use of a MI-17 and Cheetah helicopter that were to be used in the shooting.