The theme of the film "Desh Drohi " consists of politics, prostitution, pimp business, and corruption. At the start of the film a man named Raja Yadav (Kamaal Rashid Khan) arrives in Mumbai from Uttar Pradesh searching for a watchman's job, after leaving his father and neighbour, Neha, both behind in his village in Uttar Pradesh.

In Mumbai Raja meets Shekhar, a gangster, who works as a watchman and a pimp, and Sonia, who works for Baba Kadam, a drug dealer. At one point Raja helps Sonia escape from an attack by a group working for another drug dealer called Rajan Nayak, the enemy of Baba Kadam. The two eventually fall in love.

After realizing that living in Mumbai is particularly difficult for North Indians, Raja petitions Shrivastav, a North Indian politician who exploits common people for his political career, for help. The drug mafia of Mumbai city is assisted by politicians and the media want to reveal the corruption prevalent in the city.

Due to his involvement, Raja is marked for death by Rajan Nayak, who contracts a police inspector to kill both him and Sonia. However he fails and is killed. The police pursues Raja and Sonia, who are also running from Rajan Nayak. Raja attempts to get help from Shrivastav, to no avail, and even Sonia's boss, Baba Kadam, abandons the pair.

Pushed to the limit, Raja resolves to kill all involved, in which he is helped by Inspector Rohit Raghav, the new husband of Raja's village sweetheart, to kill Srivastva.

How Raja and Sonia will escape law and teach the criminals a lesson is the story of the film.

• Kamaal Rashid Khan as Raja Yadav
• Gracy Singh as Sonia
• Manoj Tiwari as Shekhar
• Kader Khan as Abdul Bhai
• Hrishita Bhatt as Neha (Mona Ghosh Shetty as the Hindi dubbing voice)
• Mukesh Tiwari as Baba Kadam
• Zulfi Syed as Rohit
• Aman Verma as Shrivastav
• Ranjeet as Raja's father
• Avtar Gill as Raja grandfather
• Aryan Vaid as a dancer in a song
• Yashpal Sharma as Rajan Nayak
• Raza Murad

There were accusations that the movie was cashing in on the 2008 attacks on North Indians in Maharashtra. The head of the Mumbai office of Central Board of Film Certification has opined that the movie has scenes that were derogatory to a particular community. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has expressed their protests against the movie. The Mumbai police served a notice for a special screening to find any objectionable content that might trigger unrest. Due to the protests and problems with exhibitors, the release date of the movie was postponed by a week from the original date of 7 November.^[6][7] The movie was released on 14 November, except in Maharashtra, where it was banned by the state government for 60 days under the Bombay Cinema Regulation Act. The producers of the film petitioned the Bombay High Court to lift the ban on the movie.^[8] After a two-month ban it released on 23 January 2009 in Maharashtra.