15 Years of Dabangg: How Bollywood still fails its women and government rewards it

When Rajjo refuses to take money for the mud pots he breaks, Chulbul responds with full-blown authority that has aged terribly: “Pyaar se de rahe hain rakh lo, warna thappad maar ke bhi de sakte hain!”

The crassness only escalates. In one sequence, Chulbul drags Rajjo’s father Hariya (Mahesh Manjrekar) to the police station — just another cheap trick to be around Rajjo. When she refuses to find the stunt charming, he orders his constables to make her smile for Rs 1000. Their methods? Vulgar jokes.

Constable 1: “Ek aadmi sadak pe peshab kar raha tha. Tiwari ne bulaya: ‘Aye idhar aao, koi pakadta nahi hai kya?’ Usne kaha: ‘Nahi sir, yeh sheher hai, apne aap hi pakadna padta hai.’”

Constable 2: “Ek ameer aadmi ne ek gareeb se poocha: ‘Batao, kissing kaam hai ya maza?’ Usne kaha: ‘Sir, maza hoga. Kaam hota toh aap mujhse karwate.’”

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Others join in, making crude gestures. In any other context, this would count as sexual harassment, but in the film, it’s played for laughs. Chulbul doesn’t object. Her father doesn’t object. Instead, even he cracks a joke and when Rajjo doesn’t laugh, he dismisses her as “Erotta.”

Later, after her father’s death, Chulbul storms into the prayer meet, shoos everyone away, hands Rajjo a suitcase and declares: “Ghoor kya rahi ho? Life bana rahe hain tumhari.” The insensitivity is staggering — a woman grieving her father is coerced into marriage because the hero decides it is time.

Even Rajjo’s outright rejection is dismissed. When Chulbul first storms into her house to “propose to her,” he says: “Do you know what brings me here?” Her answer: “No.” He declares: “I want to marry you.” She replies: “I can’t get married.” Chulbul asks: “Why?” but doesn’t really care to listen. Instead, he adds: “Shakal surat se toh achhi bhali dikhti ho. Zindagi bhar kuwari baithi rahogi?”

Only after her firm rejection does he bother to ask why. When she says she can’t leave her father, he concludes: “Iska matlab jab tak tumhare baba marenge nahi, tum shaadi nahi karogi?”

Dabangg has misogyny written all over it. Chulbul is meant to be “funny” with his wordplay — like in this scene at the station: “Kamini se yaad aaya, Tiwari teri biwi kaisi hai?” Tiwari replies: “Zinda hai.” This throwaway exchange, meant as humour, reduces a wife to nothing more than her survival — an afterthought in her own marriage.

Later, after marriage, he curiously asks Rajjo why her father called her “Erotta.” She explains its meaning and says: “Kal moohi jo apna mooh kala karwake aayi ho.” Chulbul panics: “Pehle kyun nahi bola!” The man who never once cared about her dreams suddenly fixates on her supposed “purity.” The film brushes this off as a joke, but the discomfort is real.

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It strangely echoes the controversial remark by the self-styled Pookie baba just last month when he said: “Aajkal ladki 24–25 tak 4 jagah mooh maar ke aajati hai.” Men can dance with Munni and indulge in vulgarity, but if a woman has a past, her character itself is questioned.

Two years later, in Dabangg 2, directed by Salman’s brother Arbaaz Khan, the franchise tried damage control. In one scene, Chulbul keeps asking Rajjo to hand him his belt, wallet, comb, and she silently complies while juggling the kitchen. Then, out of nowhere, he says: “Tum humari patni ho, koi gulaam nahi. Jab bhi hum tum pe aise rob daale na, tum uska virodh kiya karo.”

It’s meant as a corrective action — but it rings hollow. Rajjo is still the silent, compliant wife. The responsibility to resist his dominance is placed on her, rather than on him to change.

But this isn’t about one film. Fifteen years later, the larger landscape hasn’t changed. Bollywood still hesitates to write the character of a woman as a whole person.

A recent example is Param Sundari. The story begins and ends with Sidharth Malhotra — his app, his passions, his stubbornness, his manipulative wooing of Janhvi, his dramatic exit, and his heroic return to break her marriage. Janhvi is reduced to a prop, a shadow of who she could have been.

Meanwhile, films that dared to centre women were dismissed. In Mrs, Richa’s character refuses to be limited to the kitchen or sacrifice her dreams to become a baby-making machine. She was trolled for it. In Pagglait, Sandhya (Sanya Malhotra) doesn’t perform widowhood rituals after her husband’s death, because she cannot connect to a man who never loved her and secretly had another relationship. The film was sharp and real, yet ignored.

The tragedy of Dabangg wasn’t just its casual misogyny — it was that the film was celebrated for it. It won the National Award for “Wholesome Entertainment.” Wholesome for whom? Certainly not for women watching Rajjo’s humiliation passed off as romance.

And the pattern continues. Most recently, Animal — steeped in toxic masculinity — sparked outrage for its regressive gender politics. Yet it earned crores and now, even National Awards, some defend it: “But the award was for the music, not the story.” But the question remains: why consider them at all? When films drenched in misogyny are still deemed “award-worthy,” the system sends a clear message — commercial success and hero worship matter more than the dignity of women onscreen.

Fifteen years after Dabangg, we are still stuck in the same cycle: celebrating men, silencing women, and rewarding misogyny with both money and medals.

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