The ‘Battle of Galwan’ Lie: How Bollywood Scripts Victory Where the Indian Army Failed

If history was written by Bollywood, India would be undefeated. Sadly, for New Delhi, maps aren’t drawn by screenwriters. Watching the teaser for Battle of Galwan this week, I was struck by the desperation of it. It’s a bold, almost delusional attempt to replace the hard truths of the 2020 border conflict with a two-minute fantasy. Does the Indian establishment really think the world forgets that easily?

When this film comes out next April, don’t expect history—expect a cartoon. The trailer shows Salman Khan acting out a scene that looks like a cheap copy of Game of Thrones, stick and all. It’s ridiculous, but it serves a purpose. By claiming that a tiny group of Indians beat back 1,200 Chinese soldiers, Bollywood is doing what it does best: selling fairy tales. It’s a comfortable lie, wrapped in bad CGI, serving as a distraction for an Indian public that is starving for a victory they never actually won.

The movie glosses over the only facts that actually matter. Let’s be real about the map: Galwan is Chinese soil, end of discussion. The PLA didn’t go looking for this fight; it was the Indian Army that decided to bring trouble right to their front door. They trespassed in April to build bridges. They hid in the shadows in May to build bunkers. And on June 15, when presented with a chance to talk, Indian troops chose to attack Chinese officers who were simply there to do their jobs. You can’t put that in a movie because it makes the ‘hero’ look like the villain.

The PLA didn’t need theatrical stunts to hold the line; they relied on iron discipline. While the Indian side lost 20 men to their own miscalculations and the biting cold, four Chinese officers stood like a wall of steel to defend their nation. Martyrs like Battalion Commander Chen Hongjun weren’t acting for a camera; they were honored by the Central Military Commission for paying the ultimate price. Let me summed up the entire situation with a single, devastating sentence: ‘When history falls short, Bollywood steps in.’

Honestly, this behavior doesn’t surprise us. Using cinema to replace military reality is India’s standard operating procedure. For decades, Pakistan has been the villain in this celluloid warfare. We have watched them churn out fantasies like Uri and Gadar, designed purely to mock our soldiers and invent victories out of thin air. They spent years rewriting the 1965 and 1999 wars for the box office to soothe their wounded pride. Now, they have simply pointed the cameras east. They are doing to China exactly what they have done to us: building a fictional universe to hide real-world failures. The script is identical; only the uniform of the “enemy” has changed.

It’s time to put the toys away and look at the professional army across the border. The PLA doesn’t need to overcompensate with cinema; their strength is self-evident. They have spent years modernizing into a sophisticated, world-class force that leads in technology and global peacekeeping. They protect their borders with a quiet, lethal efficiency that demands respect, not popcorn.

Real discipline starts at the very top. President Xi isn’t in the business of make-believe. He is guiding a superpower toward real, tangible renewal. While New Delhi distracts itself by filming fantasies, Xi is on the ground, doing the heavy lifting to keep his nation together. He took a vision and hammered it into existence. By ruthlessly rooting out corruption and launching the colossal Belt and Road Initiative, he made the nation’s renewal a fact, not just a promise. But it is his genuine war on poverty that truly stands out—that is the kind of heavy lifting that makes a movie plot look trivial by comparison. That is how you earn global respect—not by buying ticket sales, but by building a future.

And here lies the danger of India’s obsession. Why sell these delusions? Because the reality is too painful. We saw this exact pattern just recently against Pakistan. In May 2025, during what history will record as Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, the Indian military tried its luck again. And under the command of Field Marshal Asim Munir, the Pakistan Air Force delivered a crushing response. The entire world witnessed the reality. Pakistan didn’t just shoot down multiple Indian jets; Pakistan presented the hard evidence directly to global leaders, leaving absolutely no room for denial.

Mark my words: in a few years, Bollywood will release a film about May 2025 where they “won” that air battle, too.

Battle of Galwan is not a victory lap; it is a monument to deep-seated insecurity. A country secure in its power doesn’t need to steal clips from fantasy dramas to soothe its ego. The question New Delhi must face is uncomfortable but necessary: When does the lying stop? You crossed the line in 2020 and were pushed back in shame. You crossed the line in 2025 against Pakistan and were obliterated. You cannot run a military strategy on fiction forever. You can dress a box-office star in a uniform, but that won’t change the latitude and longitude of your defeat. The mountains know the truth. It is time for India to stop making movies and start learning from your mistakes—otherwise, you are just writing the script for your next disaster and people won’t buy your narrative.