As the elections draw near, there are a couple of movies lined up that’ll stir a hornet’s nest. Two weeks from now, Article 370 will be in the theatres. This Yami Gautam-starrer comes from the Aditya Dhar camp whose Uri: The Surgical Strike showed much josh at the box office. Vicky Kaushal was still an unknown hero and Aditya was still to prove his competence as helmsman when the Rs 25 crore film that detailed the surgical strikes by the Indian armed forces went on to make over Rs 350 crore, besides making “How’s the josh?” go viral.

It is obvious Dhar has an unquestionable reach in the power corridors of New Delhi from where he gets his research material. That same cache, not available in the public domain, has gone into Article 370, which reveals the behind-the-scenes activity that went into keeping the abrogation such a well-kept secret. When you talk to him, or see the movie, the massiveness of the operation involving dozens of intelligence officers emerges. Yet, there was nary a leak.

The cinematic telling of how it was pulled off will have its admirers and an equally potent opposition that will frown over the dates. Uri was released in January 2019, an election year. Article 370 comes this month in another election year. The labelling of the filmmaker as a propagandist or Right-winger is inevitable.

Aditya Dhar is not just prepared for the onslaught, he’s all set to ignore it too. “There were agenda-driven critics,” he reasoned, who had also tried to dismiss Uri as jingoistic but the robust audience response drowned those voices.

In any case, it’s a double celebration for Aditya and wife Yami Gautam, who are expecting the stork this year and steaming ahead with their production banner. On the sets of films that strive for authenticity, defence and intelligence experts are usually present to guide the makers. On Article 370, there were doctors too to ensure the welfare of Yami and the baby, as the mother-to-be had an action and stress-heavy assignment as Zooni Haksar, the NIA pillar the PM relied on to pull off the abrogation without a whisper emanating. As Zooni’s boss who calls the shots, Priyamani came in from the South to play Rajeshwari Swaminathan. Priya may have been more inspired by the script than driven by the same passion as the Dhars over Kashmir and the abrogation, but Yami-Priya give Article 370 the wholesomeness of characters that range from Kashmir to Kanyakumari with feminine power at the centre.

Although Zooni’s character is patterned on a male, Yami was grateful that hubby and director Aditya Suhas Jambhale didn’t try to make the project more saleable by turning the main role into a male role.

There was a gender change in another film that will win the approval of feminists. Bastar: The Naxal Story is another film that has already begun to raise hackles in JNU. Coming from The Kerala Story team of creative producer Vipul Shah, director Sudipto Sen and actress Adah Sharma, it is believed that much of it is based on controversial IG Kalluri from the Chattisgarh cadre, who was tainted and accused of violations but was a nightmare for Naxals. The Kerala Story required a woman to tell the story of campus recruitment for ISIS but for Bastar, Vipul and Sudipto did a gender switch, named the IPS officer Neerja Madhavan and put Adah on the power chair. Even at a preview of the teaser before it went out into the digital world, it was anticipated that JNU and the Leftists, who are named by Neerja for celebrating the killing of soldiers by Naxals, would be up in arms against the film. It didn’t take them even 24 hours to start the protests. Will the censors allow JNU to be thus named?

Whatever the censure and the politics, feminists must celebrate that both films are driven by woman power.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author