MUMBAI, Feb 6: Indian patriotism may be flying high on the border with Pakistan, but it is sinking like a stone at the box-office.

With several hundred thousand Indian troops massed on the frontier, a couple of big-budget Bollywood movies have sought to cash in on the current wave of nationalist sentiment.

But pop patriotism and Pakistan-bashing are no longer the guarantors of popular success they once were.

The latest such offering, “Maa Tujhe Salaam” (Salute To The Motherland), was released last month and focuses on the heroic efforts of a military officer in single handedly preventing a vast “terrorist infiltration” across the Line of Control — with a few song-and-dance numbers thrown in.

Despite having some star names, including movie idol Sunny Deol and actress Tabu, the film has expired at the box office after being torn apart by the critics.

“Maa Tujhe Salaam is a clear flop and has proved that just because patriotic feelings are running high at the moment, it does not mean that a patriotically-positioned movie will click,” said P.S. Ramanathan, manager (film distribution) at Rajashree Productions Pvt Ltd.

The critics were unanimous in condemning the movie for its unrealistic storyline and gratuitous anti-Pakistan sentiment.

“Totally jingoistic, this film is only for those who believe that the way to solve our troubles with Pakistan is to bomb it out of existence or bore them to death with our mindless patriotic films,” said the reviewer for MTVIndia.com.

Patriotic movies have been a perennial staple of the Hindi film industry down the years — from Manoj Kumar’s “Shaheed” (Martyr) in the 1950s to J.P. Dutta’s “Border” in the late 1990s, but with audience expectations rising as fast as production standards, movies that appeal to jingoism alone no longer cut the ice.

“For a film distributor, it is not a general theme that matters,” said Sahadev Ghai, vice president (distribution) at Mukta Arts Ltd.

“Patriotism or no patriotism, the final product must be good enough to get the audience to the theatre.”

The timing of Maa Tujhe Salaam’s release could hardly have been more auspicious given the film’s storyline.

India and Pakistan have massed an estimated 800,000 troops on their common border since the December attack on the Indian parliament.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist BJP party has been fanning the nationalist sentiment created by the crisis with Pakistan, in the hope that it will benefit the party in crucial state elections later this month.

If the reception given to Maa Tujhe Salaam is anything to go by, the BJP might want to consider a different tactic.

For Sunny Deol, the film was the latest in a series of patriotic roles and the superstar seems to realise that it is time for a change.

“My next two releases have nothing to do with patriotic fervour. They are straightforward dramas,” Deol stressed in an interview last week.

“I haven’t deliberately gone in search of patriotic films. It just so happened that a spate of these films happened one after the other.”

The failure of Maa Tujhe Salam has not deterred other Bollywood producers from trying to tap the well of nationalist sentiment.

No less than three separate productions are in the pipeline for bio-pics of Bhagat Singh, India’s most popular freedom fighter who was hung by the British for sedition in 1931.

Indu Mirani, editor of the fortnightly film trade magazine ‘Box Office,’ predicted that speed and not patriotism would decide who won the battle of the biographies.

“He who releases the Bhagat Singh movie first will make money, patriotism or no patriotism,” Mirani said.

EXTREMISTS’ FUNDING: Deputy US Treasury Secretary Kenneth Dam was in India on Wednesday for talks aimed at pushing New Delhi towards an accelerated implementaion of economic reforms.