Dunki: This Shah Rukh Khan film also remembers Alan Kurdi and others

(Spoilers ahead)

Let’s accept it. This is the year of Shah Rukh Khan. He has already scored two sixers with his massive masala hits Pathaan and Jawan in 2023. His third and final release – far from all the dhishoom dhishoom that he did in the previous two – is rather a love story that is also garnished with a bit of action and a lot of emotion. After his famous monologue for the Indian citizens to vote wisely, SRK – the undisputed global superstar of India – shows the dark side of dreamlands and the ‘Donkey route’ to reach there. 

By now, we all know what Shah Rukh Khan and Rajkumar Hirani’s first collaboration is all about. Hirani is known to take on raging issues in his films through his impeccable style of storytelling. From dysfunctional medical care in the country to the malicious rat race in the education system and superstitions – he chooses the topic wisely and tells a story with great care. Dunki is no different. The director makes you laugh and cry in the same setting as he unfolds the drama of unauthorised (and also authorised) migration from India to the UK. 

We all agree that greener pasture knows no logic. It is a calling that draws you to an untested destination like the South Pole attracts the North Pole. The attraction reaches its pinnacle when thousands of people all over the world take Donkey Flights to reach the US, UK, and other first-world countries. These people risk their lives to cross borders, walk for miles through deserts, get packed in freights, and are stitched within car seats to reach their destinations. They all have reasons for leaving their homeland, friends, and families behind to go to a new land for a better life – to a land where the grass seems greener. But is it? Is it worth fighting for? Who are we to judge?

Also read: Dunki first reviews out - Shah Rukh Khan’s film ‘an emotional roller coaster’, say netizens 

Meanwhile, Dunki raises far more important questions than this. What happens once you survive the Donkey route and reach your dreamland? This time, Hirani takes on the immigration laws through the film. At an elementary level, the director clearly stated – through SRK’s arguments and even in the end scroll – that the immigration laws are discriminatory – essentially, anti-poor. If one has money, they needn’t worry about entering and living a safe life in countries like the UK. But a poor person doesn’t enjoy the same rights. Rather, they are on a constant run from the cops, Home Offices, and of course, poverty. 

Hirani’s film further argues that only about a century ago, there was no requirement for a visa to travel across countries. In fact, the film also questions the ethical grounds on which the UK demands visas from the people of a country that they ruled for nearly two centuries during Pax Britannica. 

Also read: Shah Rukh Khan feels Dunki is a film he did for himself 

At a more complex level, Dunki challenges the global outcry over the ‘immigration menace’ promoted by the far rights all over the world. Not so long ago, in 2015, a heartbreaking photograph of a dead Syrian child by the shore of a Greek Island shook the world. Two-year-old Alan Kurdi could not survive the ‘Dunki’ route that his parents took to flee from their war-torn homeland, Syria. The immigration issue has become a maker and breaker for many country’s governments since then. Hirani’s Dunki silently remembers the immigrants who survived, or failed, to get the ‘Midas touch’ of ‘greener pastures’.