New Delhi: Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s upcoming war drama Battle of Galwan, inspired by the China-India LAC clash in 2020, has been renamed Maatrubhumi. Khan, who is also a producer on the film, shared the new poster on his Instagram with the caption: “May War Rest in Peace”. Fans speculated that the new name was drawn from a song for the film by Arijit Singh.
Maatrubhumi is directed by Apoorva Lakhia and is set to release on 17 April. Khan plays Colonel Bikkumalla Santosh Babu, who sacrificed himself along with 19 other soldiers of the 16th Bihar Regiment to protect the Indian territory. He was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, India’s second-highest wartime gallantry medal. The film also stars Chitrangadha Singh, and two songs from it were released over the last two months.
The film’s teaser, released on 27 December, opened with Khan delivering a speech as his team prepares to face the enemy. The clip then shows him walking toward the enemy soldiers, holding a log of wood, even as they charge toward him. The video ended with Khan wielding the log and saying, “Maut se kya darna, ussey toh aana hai (Why be afraid of death when it is inevitable)”.
Following the trailer’s release, however, China raised strong objections to the depiction of the 2020 crisis in the film.
“A Chinese expert said on Monday that Bollywood films at most provide an entertainment-driven, emotionally charged portrayal, but no amount of cinematic exaggeration can rewrite the history or shake the PLA’s determination to defend China’s sovereign territory,” read a report from 30 December by Global Times, the daily tabloid of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
In the summer 2020 clash in eastern Ladakh between Indian and Chinese troops, 20 Indian soldiers died. Eight months after the clash, China admitted the death of four PLA soldiers. It then led to heightened tensions between the two neighbours and a breakdown in political ties for almost half a decade.
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What we know so far
At a weekly media briefing in January, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal was asked about reports claiming that the MEA had “raised objections” to the film depicting the clash in the Galwan Valley.
“We understand that a film of this nature is being planned. Issues regarding film-making in India, as you are well aware, are looked after by the relevant authorities. And as far as we are concerned, the MEA has no role in this,” Jaiswal said.
In 2023, Lakhia acquired the rights to a chapter from the book India’s Most Fearless 3, written by journalists Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh.
Some portions of the film were shot in July last year. “We start shooting in 10 days. It’s a tough one — intense, all hand-to-hand combat in the freezing waters of Leh, Ladakh. We’ll be in fresh snow-melting water for eight days straight. I’m dreading it, but I’ll do it,” Khan had told NDTV in July 2025.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)