Why is India blocking film on a man who counted Punjab insurgency killings?
Satluj, based on the life and murder of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, is still finding its audience despite the government ban. Indian authorities
Satluj, based on the life and murder of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, is still finding its audience despite the government ban. Indian authorities are investigating whether a film based on a separatist insurgency in India’s Punjab state in the 1980s and early 1990s is fit for viewers. Satluj, as the film is titled after a river in Punjab, claims to tell the true story of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human rights activist who was tortured and killed by the police in 1995 for investigating thousands of disappearances and extrajudicial killings during a brutal government crackdown on the separatist movement. Originally titled Punjab 95, the film was blocked by India’s censor board for three years. The board ordered a change in the film’s name and demanded nearly 130 cuts before allowing a theatrical release. The filmmakers refused the cuts and instead released Satluj on the ZEE5 streaming platform on July 3, only for it to be removed 48 hours later on security grounds. Here’s a look at the controversy. What is Satluj about? Written and directed by Honey Trehan, the 163-minute biopic is based on the life – and killing – of Khalra, a bank employee in Punjab’s city of Amritsar, who begins to investigate the disappearance of a friend and the friend’s mother, and ends up finding thousands of similar cases. The disappearances – and presumed killings – were part of a larger crackdown by Indian security forces to crush a separatist movement that aimed to establish Khalistan, an independent, sovereign state for Sikhs in Punjab. Khalra’s investigation alleged that police secretly cremated nearly 25,000 disappeared people without informing their families or maintaining official records. He continued his investigations despite threats and warnings, until he was picked up from outside his home on September 6, 1995. He was presumed to be murdered, though his body was never found. He was 42. After Khalra’s custodial murder, his wife, Paramjit, campaigned for justice, forcing the government to order an investigation by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the allegations.
Five police officials are serving life in prison for Khalra’s killing. Diljit Dosanjh, one of India’s biggest film stars, plays Khalra. The film is narrated by the actor playing the police officer who led the CBI probe. The movie has received rave reviews, with critics touting it as one of the most powerful films made in India in recent years. What is Khalistan and what happened in Punjab? The Khalistan rebellion was one of independent India’s bloodiest internal conflicts during the 1980s and early 1990s. The separatist movement was rooted in long-running political and religious grievances over Sikh identity, demands for greater state autonomy, disputes over sharing river water with other states, and excessive federal control over the western state bordering Pakistan. Armed Sikh fighters carried out bombings, targeted killings, and assassinations, as the police and paramilitary forces launched a sweeping operation to crack down on those involved in the movement. According to human rights groups, the operation included torture, extrajudicial and custodial killings, enforced disappearances, and secret cremations. In the summer of 1984, Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism’s holiest site, which was occupied by separatist fighters at the time. Operation Blue Star, as it was called, left hundreds dead. Later that year, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards, who held her responsible for the Golden Temple bloodshed. Gandhi’s assassination triggered anti-Sikh riots, with thousands of Sikhs killed in Punjab and the Indian capital, New Delhi, in what Sikh groups have described as a genocide. Sikh fighters responded by killing General Arun Kumar Vaidya, the army chief who had overseen the storming of the Golden Temple, in 1986. They also killed members of parliament, whom they believed to be behind the anti-Sikh violence in the middle 1980s. In 1994, the fighters killed the then-Punjab governor, Surendar Nath, and state Chief Minister Beant Singh the next year. Violence largely subsided in the mid-90s, but several Sikh groups in India and abroad are still accused by India of separatist tendencies.
The BriefWire