India–China relations are now shaped entirely on Beijing’s terms

Salman Khan set out to star in a film about the Galwan clash, in June 2020, in which twenty Indian soldiers died confronting Chinese troops. Since then, the filmmakers have had to change its title, Battle of Galwan, to Maatrubhumi: May War Rest in Peace. They had to reshoot forty percent of the film to erase direct references to China and scrub out the explicit Galwan context. The narrative has shifted from a nationalistic military showdown into a broader human drama about the cost of war. These changes followed a new directive from the defence ministry, which judged that, even though it had earlier approved the script, portraying China as an adversary was not the right call at present. Narendra Modi, in seeking an accommodation with Beijing, is also attempting to control how Indians remember their soldiers’ deaths.

The producers of The Lion of Galwan, a biopic tracking the bravery of the sepoy Gurtej Singh, who died in the Galwan clash, shelved the film after the government’s decree. Without an authentic depiction of the actual combat and geopolitical context, they felt, the film had lost its purpose. Compare this to Haqeeqat, Chetan Anand’s seminal 1964 film about the 1962 Sino-India war, made with extensive support from the defence ministry. Under Modi, India has now arrived at a moment when even naming the adversary in a recent military clash threatens political sensitivities and diplomatic interests.

Khan’s film teaser had sparked online criticism in China, with the Global Times claiming that it “distorted facts” and fueled anti-China sentiment. On Chinese social-media platforms such as Weibo, users accused Bollywood of rewriting history and violating historical facts. Indian official sources initially defended the film as artistic expression, but the Modi government soon stepped in, to protect ties with Beijing. Asked about the issue, the ministry of external affairs spokesperson said film-production regulation in India was “looked after by the relevant authorities”—meaning the ministries of information and broadcasting, and defence, respectively. The I&B ministry has now given a no-objection certificate to Khan’s film after the new narrative reportedly casts India–China relations in a more positive light.

The Modi government's interventions in film projects on Galwan were driven by the shift initiated by the October 2024 India–China border understanding—a direct diplomatic concession to Beijing. What India received in return is much less clear. Since that understanding, followed by a meeting between Modi and Xi at Kazan, the official ecosystem in India has engineered a systematic attempt to project a sense of normalcy in bilateral relations. Meetings between senior officials and ministers have resumed, diplomatic exchanges have gathered pace and official language has grown more reassuring, particularly from the Indian side. This narrative relies on deliberate evasion concerning the actual ground situation across eastern Ladakh.