Eye Spy: What doing the ‘dunki’ means – and where we first heard the term

This is an excerpt from Nandini Ramnath’s weekly newsletter, Eye Spy. To receive it regularly in your inbox, sign up here.

The third Shah Rukh Khan release in a year revolves around an illegal immigration method called the “dunki”. Also known as “dunky”, which is a corruption of donkey, this mode of clandestinely smuggling people from the subcontinent to richer climes has resonance in India – and Pakistan.

Dunki has been directed by Rajkumar Hirani – who famously cast Khan in Munnabhai M.B.B.S. before Sanjay Dutt – and written by Hirani, Abhijat Joshi and Kanika Dhillon. A film on the same subject has already been made in Pakistan. Zinda Bhaag, directed by Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi, revolves around three Lahorians who want to get the hell out by any means possible.

Zinda Bhaag was released in 2013, years before the recent surge in Pakistanis trying to flee their homeland for better prospects. Why gloat over our less fortunate neighbours, who are escaping punishing inflation, political instability and religious fundamentalism?

According to a report on Scroll, the American think tank Pew Research Center found...

Read more