Mission Impossible for India's new Bond-style film to reset the country's political plot?

From January 25, India and much of the world gets to see Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan, a film that loosely marries a James Bond modus operandi with a Mission Impossible plotline.

How it is received will be a test — of what’s left of Indian secularism, more than 30 years after the Hindu nationalists set a high new bar for hyper-intolerance by demolishing the disputed mediaeval Babri Mosque.

Much is hoped and feared of and for Pathaan, the film. Much of this revolves around the identity of its super hero, a 57-year-old actor whose chief problem is his birth faith.

Mr Khan is Muslim in an increasingly intolerant India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

To be a Muslim and a prominent one in India today is a test — of patience and fortitude, as well as sheer creativity of response. And Mr Khan has faced more than his share of trials for being Muslim. For the best part of a decade, he has been a target for hardline Hindu groups. The pattern continu…