"..... unhoney Militants aur Civilians ke beech fark karna band kar diya tha"
(background commentary by narrator )
For years, Honey Trehan’s film on human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra existed more as a censorship controversy than a movie. Announced as Ghallughara, later retitled Punjab ’95 and finally released as Satluj, the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer spent nearly four years battling certification hurdles before quietly premiering on ZEE5 on July 3.
There were no promotions, interviews or marketing campaigns. Then, just 48 hours later, the film disappeared.
(We should know -- Jaswant Singh Khalra (1952–1995)was an Indian Sikh human rights activist.
He garnered global attention for his research concerning 25,000 illegal killings and cremations involving the Punjab police, and that the police had even killed about 2,000 police officers who refused to cooperate.
Khalra was last seen in September 1995, washing his car in front of his house in Amritsar. Six Punjab police officials were later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for Khalra's abduction and murder.)
The government asked ZEE5 to remove Satluj after its uncut OTT release, citing security concerns under the IT Rules. The takedown has drawn objections from the SGPC and Punjab parties, while Diljit Dosanjh said it was bound to happen.
On July 5, ZEE5 announced that Satluj would be unavailable in India “until further notice”, citing unspecified “developments”. The platform has not elaborated further, and neither the CBFC nor the film’s producers have publicly explained the move.
The most detailed response has come from Diljit, who suggested the team always feared such an outcome.
During an Instagram Live session, the actor said the makers deliberately avoided announcing or promoting the release because they worried the film might never reach audiences otherwise. In fact, during a fan interaction a day before the takedown, he had predicted it could happen: “Today is Saturday. I feel it could be taken down by Monday. But no worry, you download it and watch.”
On Sunday afternoon, July 5, I saw half or little more of the film amid work load, flirting with football world cup and domestic tantrums about Sunday vegetable shopping from the bitter half. I liked the film - perhaps more due to my journalism background and having known the 'story' of 25000 mysterious missing persons in the 1990s of Punjab. But the film has vanished and later as I was frantically on 'search' for the movie -- Zee5's on-screen message was "not available in your region".
I presumed Zee TV was after money and there was something wrong (or technical gaps in my subscription). I subscribed the channel on the advice of my daughter for football.
In the world cup too - there are many setbacks and surprises. Brazil's and prior to that Germany's exit were painful but the little Cape Verde has charmed us all.
Will Satluj come back ? I also thought the timing of the release of the film was perfect. In 1996-97, 'Maachis' by Gulzar was such a sensational film on terrorism in Punjab.
It had political fallout in the polls too. Many years later came 'Udta Punjab' on drug abuse but it did not have the type of impact, the mesmerising film by Gulzar (that is Maachis) had done.
The political thriller 'Tandav' series starring Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia and Sunil Grover also courted controversy when the show was accused of hurting religious sentiments by mocking Lord Shiva in one of the episodes.
Nevertheless, the story of 'Satluj' is based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, (played by Diljit Dosanjh), and the extrajudicial killings that took place in Punjab during the 1990s as the police cracked down under Congress party on terrorism.
The facts are shocking.
Around 25,000 unidentified people, many of whom had either disappeared or were declared killed in police encounters, were cremated illegally.
Jaswant, a bank director, is compelled to take the disappearances to the Court after someone he knows goes missing.
What follows is gut-wrenching. The system, the police, everyone tried to suppress his voice, one that refused to die down and instead resonated worldwide.
'The Hindu' newspaper review on ‘Satluj’
titled it --- "The anatomy of state violence"
"Diljit Dosanjh shines as a solitary lamp whose conviction outlasts the darkest night in this moving tribute to social activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, where director Honey Trehan examines the rhetoric around the dehumanisation of citizens".
In the beginning part of the film - the background voice of Arjun Nagpal says - this is the story of a period when 'poora Punjab thak chuka tha".
On one side, he says the police was working to fight and eliminate militancy; on the other hand, some police officials were taking full advantage of the situation and killing people in false encounters.
One dialogue from a senior cop (the main guilty in the scheme of things) tells an aging woman "I get two smells quite perfectly ... one good food (saag) and the other terrorists". Later he eliminates entire family including aging parents and two terrorists who are planted in the house.
Later police claim some cache of arms were also recovered.
Armed with the fragile pages of municipal logs and the calculated weights of cremation firewood, the character played by Diljit resurrects the disappeared, meticulously piecing together a forensic paper trail that strips away the senior police leadership’s complicity. For the uninitiated, Satluj (originally titled Panjab 95) chronicles the true-life crusade of social activist Jaswant Singh Khalra (Diljit Dosanjh), who risked his life to uncover thousands of secrets behind the state-sanctioned extrajudicial cremations in the 1990s when Punjab was on the boil.
Coming at a time when human rights are viewed skeptically, and activism is routinely branded a threat to national security, Satluj arrives not just as a period drama, but as a fearless, contemporary warning, says 'The Hindu' newspaper.
"Caught in the cobwebs of the Central Board of Film Certification for years, it is the story of a terrifying dark, but more than that, it is the story of a solitary candle that refused to be blown out by the winds of systemic tyranny in a democracy."
Like Gulzar's 'Maachis', this film also shows that citizens are like "matchsticks" that ignite when pushed too far by systemic cruelty, as he recreates the assassination of CM Beant Singh as the tipping point.
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| Helpless mother pleading the 'killer' cop |
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