KEY POINTS
- Mahira Khan and Mawra Hocane have been erased from Bollywood album covers
- Streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube Music now feature edited cover photos
- Earlier, India blocked social media access for over two dozen prominent Pakistani artists
ISLAMABAD: In a deliberate move, India has removed images of Pakistani actresses Mahira Khan and Mawra Hocane from the digital artwork and credits of their respective Bollywood films on streaming platforms, amid growing tensions between the two neighbouring countries.
India has edited out the image—and perhaps the memory—of Pakistani actress Mahira Khan from the digital album covers and credits of the 2017 Bollywood film Raees, in which she starred alongside Shah Rukh Khan.
What once stood as a cross-border cinematic milestone is now a ghost of itself—scrubbed clean of the very collaboration it once celebrated.
Mahira Khan is not alone in this vanishing act. Actress Mawra Hocane, another celebrated Pakistani name in Indian cinema, has been similarly removed from the musical cover of Sanam Teri Kasam, replaced entirely by her co-star Harshvardhan Rane.
Even more tellingly, the sequel to the film quietly dropped Mawra from its casting plans, a signal to fans and critics alike that politics has begun to script the industry’s credits.
These subtle digital omissions, notably on global streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube Music, point toward a growing discomfort in India with maintaining public visual ties to Pakistani artists—even if those collaborations are nearly a decade old.
The romantic hit “Zaalima,” once adorned with the duo of Shah Rukh and Mahira, now features the Bollywood kingpin alone, the leading lady erased as if she were never part of the frame.
Interestingly, not all past collaborations have been wiped clean. The album art for Khoobsurat, starring Indian actress Sonam Kapoor and Pakistani heartthrob Fawad Khan, remains untouched—for now.
While barbed words across borders are nothing new, the intrusion of geopolitical unease into cultural spaces is unsettling.
Cinema has long served as a fragile yet hopeful bridge between the two nations—a place where artists dared to collaborate when governments would not. But now, even the archives are being rewritten.
It is worth mentioning that earlier, frustrated by the world’s refusal to buy into India’s baseless accusations against Pakistan over the Pahalgam incident, Indian authorities blocked the social media accounts of several prominent Pakistani movie stars, including Hania Amir, Mahira Khan, and Ali Zafar.
This sweeping ban included over two dozen high-profile figures, such as Sanam Saeed, Ali Zafar, Bilal Abbas, Saba Qamar, Hamza Ali Abbasi, and Ali Sethi — Pakistani talent that has long been celebrated on both sides of the border for their artistic contributions.
