Rajkumar Hirani on overcoming industry scepticism and the comfort of relatability

In an industry defined by rigid formulas and high-octane action, filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani has consistently carved his own path. Sitting down for a reflective conversation, the veteran director opened up about his cinematic philosophy, the intense resistance he faced early in his career, and how the relatability of a subject ultimately dictates a film's cultural footprint.

Before he became the filmmaker behind some of Indian cinema’s biggest hits, Hirani was an outsider trying to pitch a deeply unconventional concept. When he was gearing up for his directorial debut, Munna Bhai M.B.B.S., the industry response was far from encouraging.

Critics and insiders were quick to dismiss the project. Hirani remembers the exact phrasing of the intense blowback: "People came to me and said, What have you done? This is a disaster. Sanjay Dutt is an action hero, and you are taking him to make a film like this? Who shoots an entire picture inside a hospital?"

The resistance followed him into his next project, Lage Raho Munna Bhai. On the day of the film's release, the pressure boiled over into outright panic. "On the very first day the film released, Vinod [Chopra] called me and said, 'In Delhi, our effigies are being burned!'" Hirani reveals. The controversy was triggered by the creative framing of the narrative and the coining of the term "Gandhi"

The backlash quickly dissolved within forty-eight hours after receiving crucial validations from then-Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi, who praised the film as a brilliant tribute.

For Hirani, these early hurdles opened a core belief about the true intent of filmmaking: "You cannot set out with a rigid agenda saying, 'I am making this film with this specific social purpose.' If you do that, you aren't making a movie anymore, you're making propaganda, and it will never work. People go to a cinema hall to watch a great, entertaining story."

He emphasises that internal conviction is the only true shield against industry doubt. "You have to truly believe in it," Hirani states. "That belief is the only thing that carries you through the year-long journey of making a film."

Addressing his collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan in Dunki and how it didn't mirror the staggering, universal reach like his previous blockbusters, 3 Idiots, Hirani contextualised the film's performance through the lens of audience accessibility.

"The reach of a film depends entirely on the universal nature of its core subject," Hirani explains. Reflecting on his past success, he notes, "Every single middle-class household in India connects directly with the education system and the intense parental pressures shown in '3 Idiots'. It is an immediate, daily reality for them."

By contrast, Dunki tackled a far more hyper-specific, regional dilemma, the harsh realities of illegal immigration and the dangerous "donkey flight" routes. Hirani breaks down the demographic mismatch that limited the film's domestic box office pull: "The typical, affluent theatre-going audience in Indian cities can secure passports and standard travel visas with relative ease. For them, the agonising desperation of being denied a visa is a very distant concept."

Further talking about the people who actually endure these intense financial hardships and visa rejections, he shared that those people are often entirely out of the luxury of a cinema-going experience.

Despite the film's narrower impact, Hirani remains fiercely defensive of the narrative, finding fulfilment in its targeted emotional resonance. "I still receive deeply moving, lengthy messages from South Asian diaspora communities settled abroad," Hirani shares. "They write to me saying they felt entirely seen, understood, and validated by how the film portrayed the pain of identity and displacement. "

Adding to it, he further said, "As a filmmaker, your career is a natural graph of highs and lows. Some stories are destined to reach the massive crowds, while others are meant to hold up a mirror to a more specific, overlooked slice of the human experience."