An online mob decided that disagreement was treason. Among the first to be hit were the familiar names — reviewers who have, for years, been part of the necessary, often thankless job, of telling India what it should be watching, and sometimes, what it should not see. Suddenly, their reviews — if negative and questioning — were recast as acts of sabotage. But, the final blow came when Anupama Chopra, arguably the most visible film journalist in the country, took down her film review after an unrelenting barrage of abuse. Chopra called Dhurandhar an “exhausting, relentless, and frenzied espionage thriller driven by a heavy dose of testosterone, and shrill nationalism”. She felt the film leaned more on “spectacle and jingoism than on storytelling finesse”. The removal was unprecedented; in her decades-long career, Chopra had never withdrawn a review, not even during earlier cycles of actor fandom toxicity. The disappearance of the video became a kind of Rorschach test for the industry. What was clear is that the act jolted the Film Critics Guild into public action. Within hours, the Guild released an unusually sharp statement condemning the harassment as “targeted, coordinated, and designed to intimidate,” and warning that such attacks were not merely personal but posed a “direct threat to editorial independence”. Renowned film critic Sucharita Tyagi has lived through enough online trolling to identify its cadences — how fast it accumulates, how swiftly it attempts to strip a person of their voice. As vice chairperson of the and an independent critic with over 1.5 lakh YouTube subscribers, she has watched the latest round of harassment with a sense of déjà vu. Film critic Anupama Chopra’s review calling the film “driven by a heavy dose of testosterone, and shrill nationalism” was taken down from YouTube “Film criticism needs to survive for the culture, for the arts,” she says. “And there are many film critics who are used to getting trolled every day, so everyone just takes it in our stride and moves on. But there are others who will be dissuaded from joining this line of journalism.” Safety — emotional, professional, and even physical — has become a faintly nostalgic idea. For Tyagi, the fear is existential. If critics begin softening their edges, sanding off their truths before publication, something essential dies. “You can’t write a review thinking about what reaction it might get,” she says. “As a journalist, you do your job with honesty, and hope for the best.” Tyagi gave Dhurandhar a critical review, describing it as a long, hyper-masculine film that felt exhausting and overly heavy in tone. The three-and-a-half-hour runtime and dominant male-centric energy made it a difficult watch for her. Tyagi is painfully clear-eyed about who enables this chaos. “I expect better systems for reporting [offenders],” she says. “But I have no hope from social media platforms anymore. Twitter [X] used to be a different place. Now anybody can buy a Twitter Blue badge and say whatever they want to say.” For Rahul Desai, film critic at The Hollywood Reporter, the current firestorm is less surprising than it is dispiriting. “It’s not the first time such a thing has happened,” he says. “I hate to say it, but I kind of expected it. This time they’ve targeted the female critics more.” What unsettles Desai is the intent — the targeting feels systemic. “It is to shut down opinion,” he says. “It is to get film critics fired, so that divisive movies can run freely without any opposition.” Desai said in his review, “The desire to paint every Pakistani as a sinner and a fool is at odds with the film’s decision to give them so much screen time; it’s often torn between playing them up [Khanna has more entry shots than single-screen superstars] and cutting them down to size.” He’s observed a pattern in which certain films, blockbusters that court hyper-nationalistic fervour, attract this kind of reaction. “It happened with The Kashmir Files, with Uri to an extent before that, Chhava earlier this year. Most of them propagate a certain kind of ideology that is very often Islamophobic.” But the corrosion began long before Dhurandhar. Back in 2014, Desai resigned from a Mumbai daily when the publication altered his rating of Tanu Weds Manu Returns without his consent. “It’s been 10 years since the incident, and I don’t think much has changed except that back then it wasn’t as political,” he reflects, “It was more about bullying a younger journalist. Now, any critic can take the fall.” The hurt cuts deepest when it comes from within the industry. Actor Paresh Rawal tweeting at Anupama Chopra, “Aren’t you tired of being Miss Irrelevant?” was a moment many critics cite as emblematic of the new contempt. Tyagi sighs. “It’s just sad that somebody feels like doing that, knowing full well the army of trolls and threats that is going to lead to.” Desai is less diplomatic. “I don’t think I can call that criticism. That’s just clownery,” he says. “There’s this entire argument of ‘If they [critics] criticise, why can’t we criticise them?’ But sending us death threats and rape threats, and threatening to shut down our livelihood and attack our family — that is not criticism.” He pauses, then continues. “Conversations and debates can be had. It can get heated on social media, and it should. That’s what films should do. But you can’t act like Paresh Rawal.” Even so, Desai ends on grace. “It’s more or less the same group of critics that get targeted. It’s not stopped us yet. Let’s see how it goes.” If the backlash against Tyagi and Desai represents one face of this moment, then BH Harsh of Cinema Express represents the other — an ordinary weekend post spiralling into a full-blown crisis. “What’s scary,” Harsh says, “is that the hate wasn’t even for something I said.” His post about Dhurandhar calling the film “pointless, derivative, empty, and manipulative” went up late on a Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, it had begun gathering heat. “Within minutes, and with the kind of language being used, I knew it would escalate. What I didn’t know is that people would tag Mumbai Police and some right-wing organisations. That’s when I felt alarmed.” By the night of December 7, he had locked his account. It would remain private for days. In 48 hours, he received over 1500 messages, many of them tracking him across platforms. “Most of them bordered on abusive language,” he says, “But a few were particularly startling, with rape and death threats.” He has not decided on legal action yet, though he’s spoken to friends and a lawyer. “If things go too far, I am prepared for it,” he says. What helped, unexpectedly, was singer Chinmayi Sripada publicly defending him saying “I really wish the authorities would do something to clean up here. It’s become maniacal.” “This is a complex terrain,” Harsh says. “Most of the film actors can’t take any chances now. And most stars still have a hostile attitude towards critics.” But even the established stars were not spared. When took to social media to offer a measured take, praising Dhurandhar’s craft while acknowledging that he “may disagree with the politics of it” and reflecting on the responsibilities filmmakers bear as citizens of the world, the response was hostile. What was meant as a perspective was seized by trolls accusing him of everything from feigned political correctness and even dragging his partner, Saba Azad, into the vitriol. Ideally, a matter like this should be taken up by the Producers Guild, but no one has filed an official complaint, higher ups tell Sunday mid-day. A top brass tells us that he is almost embarrassed by how fractured the ecosystem has become. “Twenty years back, when we started our careers,” he says, “criticism wasn’t personal. Khalid Mohammed would say what he had to say. And it was all part of the job.” But the digital boom changed the moral economy of reviews. “When you work with people to get favourable reviews, money for tweets and posts, this barter system has corrupted everything.” On the Guild, he is blunt. “The Guild has no real point of view. Individually we do, but as a body? No one has come to us so far. If they do, I assure you action will be taken. After the Sushant Singh Rajput incident in 2020, 40 studios had collectively approached the courts and rightful apologies were made by those who tarnished our image. But for something similar to happen, a complaint has to come to us. Let’s fix the rot?” But will that bring back the good old art of critiquing? Unlikely, said each of our interviewees. Not now. Not after this.