The Bollywood Gleichschaltung: How India’s Film Industry Became a Coordinated Propaganda Arm for the Regime
While Bollywood stars “hobnob” with the RSS, the international community has categorized India as a global liability.
By Rakesh Raman
New Delhi | April 11, 2026
On April 11, 2026, the Indian film industry reached a point of no return. Ranveer Singh, the lead actor of the recent Dhurandhar franchise, visited the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur. By paying tribute at the memorial of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and holding a high-profile meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Singh effectively ended the pretense of artistic independence in Bollywood.
To an international observer, this may look like a simple celebrity visit. In reality, it is the final act of Gleichschaltung—a term used in 1930s Germany to describe the “forcible coordination” of all social and cultural institutions under a single autocratic ideology.
The Players: Bollywood, BJP, and the RSS
To understand this collapse, one must understand the three pillars of power currently operating in India:
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The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party): The ruling Hindu-nationalist party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh): A militant, right-wing paramilitary organization that serves as the ideological parent of the BJP. It seeks to transform India’s secular democracy into a Hindu-first state.
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Bollywood: The world’s most prolific film industry, now being utilized as the regime’s primary tool for “Information Poisoning.”
The Dhurandhar Deception: From Film to Frontal Outfit
For the past year, Ranveer Singh and the crew of the Dhurandhar series have faced intense public accusations of being a propaganda wing for the Modi-RSS alliance. While the filmmakers previously defended their work as “mere entertainment,” the mask has now been removed.
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The Dhurandhar films were designed to project an image of a fearless, militarized India, mirroring the regime’s own rhetoric. To ensure these films were perceived as “global hits,” the industry engaged in Data Currency Fraud. As documented by the RMN Foundation, there is a huge gap between the box office figures claimed by Indian media and the actual figures recorded by global tracking estimates. This fraudulent data is used to manufacture a “consensus of success,” making an ordinary film look like a civilizational triumph.
Worshipping the Leader, Embracing the Militant
The coordination is not limited to a single actor. It is a systemic, industry-wide surrender:
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The Birthday Pledges: In September 2025, every major Bollywood star—including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan—issued public, worshipful statements for PM Modi’s 75th birthday. This was a mandatory performance of loyalty to avoid the state’s “investigative” wrath.
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The RSS Centenary: In February 2026, the elite of the industry, from Karan Johar to Ranbir Kapoor, attended the RSS centenary celebrations. They did so while the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was recommending sanctions against the RSS for “severe escalation” in human rights abuses and the silencing of religious minorities.
The Global Verdict: A Dying Democracy
While Bollywood stars “hobnob” with the RSS, the international community has categorized India as a global liability. The V-Dem 2026 Democracy Report identifies India as the primary driver of global democratic decay. The report highlights the “slow but systematic dismantling” of media independence and the freedom of expression—a process facilitated by the very actors who now pay tribute to paramilitary leaders in Nagpur.
The UFA / Ufi Blueprint: A Historical Warning
To understand Bollywood in 2026, one must look at Germany in 1942. The state-owned media conglomerate UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft) was the pride of German cinema until it was purchased by Alfred Hugenberg, a media mogul who served in Hitler’s cabinet.
Under the policy of Gleichschaltung, the Nazi regime bundled UFA and all competing studios into a singular, state-controlled super-corporation called UFA-Film GmbH (Ufi). Ufi’s sole purpose was to:
Dehumanize minorities through scripted fiction.
Manufacture a cult of personality for the leader.
Hide criminality behind a wall of “perfect” audience ratings and artistic spectacle.
Bollywood has become the 21st-century equivalent of Ufi. By aligning with the RSS—an outfit facing calls for international sanctions—actors like Ranveer Singh are no longer artists; they are partners in a coordinated effort to mask the dismantling of a nation’s democracy behind a ₹1,600 Crore lie.
The End of the Ordinary
The “Data Currency Fraud” and the “Information Poisoning” documented in the latest RMN Foundation research are the pillars of this new cultural order. When the film industry chooses to worship a leader and embrace a militant outfit identified as a human rights violator, it ceases to be an industry of art. It becomes an industry of coercion.
Ranveer Singh’s visit to Nagpur is the final “stamp of approval” on a fraudulent system. For the global observer, the lesson is clear: in India today, the box office is fake, the “success” is manufactured, and the cinema is the frontline of a democratic collapse.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.
