From Shaktimaan to Shocktimaan: India’s Superhero Problem

There was a time when Shaktimaan, India’s most beloved television superhero stood for truth, justice, and the protection of the weak. Millions of children across South Asia tuned in, believing that good always triumphed over evil and that the hero’s moral compass never faltered. It was a simpler, almost innocent time. Much like the early days of India’s post-independence diplomacy, when the country publicly aligned itself with peace, non-alignment, and the Panchsheel principles.

But in both fiction and politics, heroes sometimes fall.

The Ideal Hero (Before the Fall)

Shaktimaan’s earliest episodes championed universal values: fighting corruption, defending the helpless, standing above petty politics. India’s early foreign policy projected a similar image, one of restraint, dialogue, and a moral high ground in South Asia. This was the India that claimed to value peace over power, conversation over confrontation.

From Guardian to Government Tool

Over time, though, the hero’s purity in the public imagination was replaced by something else, a shallow, state-scripted version designed to serve a narrative. In fiction, this might mean the superhero spouting moral lessons that subtly align with a government’s talking points. In reality, India’s shift under the Hindutva establishment has meant turning its “moral” image into a weaponized tool aimed squarely at Pakistan.

We’ve seen this through a relentless propaganda machine: media houses amplifying false-flag operations like Pahalgam, revisionist history filtering into school textbooks, and Bollywood war spectacles blurring the line between fiction and state narrative. The script has changed the “protector” has become the provocateur.

Manufacturing the Villain

Lazy writing in a comic often conjures up a single, unchanging enemy so the plot can keep running. In India’s political script, Pakistan is that eternal villain. This serves two purposes: to distract from internal crises like unemployment, farmer protests, and rising communal violence, and to rally votes through fear. In this storyline, Pakistan’s role is never reassessed because the plot depends on keeping the villain alive.

When Episodes Mirror Reality

In one “episode,” the hero punches through a wall to chase an imaginary enemy. In real life, India’s “surgical strikes” narrative played out the same way, more for domestic ratings than battlefield reality.
In another, the hero spends days chasing a phantom villain while ignoring chaos in his own city. The Modi government’s obsession with externalizing every problem mirrors this using Pakistan as the excuse while ignoring economic distress and human rights abuses in Kashmir.

Ratings Over Reality

In television, cliffhangers and recurring villains keep the audience hooked. In politics, manufactured tension with Pakistan serves the same role, a reliable vote-winner every election cycle. The media plays along, turning national security into a soap opera and Pakistan into a caricature.

The Alternative Hero

But here’s where the real world departs from the comic strip. Pakistan’s actual “heroes” aren’t fictional: our UN peacekeepers who serve in the world’s toughest missions, our military’s flood rescue operations, our restraint in crises despite provocation. While India scripts drama, Pakistan delivers real regional stability.

Taking Back the Cape

The story doesn’t have to end with “Shocktimaan”, the distorted shadow of what the hero once was. Just as fans sometimes demand their hero return to their original values, South Asia deserves a narrative rooted in truth, not theatrics. In the real world, heroism is measured not in capes and catchphrases, but in integrity, restraint, and respect for facts. And on that count, Pakistan doesn’t just hold the cape, it wears it with honor.