How India's blocking of a film exposing real-life police abuses backfired

How India's blocking of a film exposing real-life police abuses backfired When Indian authorities scrubbed the biopic of activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, local villagers and activists turned its censorship into a grassroots movement.

Key points

• In 1990, Ranjit Singh Babbar was 3 years old when police from Punjab's Kapurthala district detained his farmer father, Sardar Atma Singh.
• This photograph taken on July 15 demonstrates villagers watching the film Satluj during a community-led screening at the Gurudwara Singh Sabha in Punjab's Gurdaspur city.
• Against the backdrop of this violence in the 1990s, Amritsar resident Jaswant Singh Khalra quit his job at a local bank to document such killings.
• Villagers watch a special screening of the film Satluj at a Sikh temple at Tatley village, in Punjab's Gurdaspur district, India, on July 8.
• Sarabjit Singh Verka, a lawyer with the nonprofit Punjab Human Rights Organisation in Amritsar, has represented plenty of victims of the violence.

In the second week of July, hundreds in Bandala village in the Indian state of Punjab attended the screening of Satluj, a film blocked by the Indian administration on grounds of "national security." Omkar Khandekar/NPR hide caption.

AMRITSAR, India – On a muggy monsoon evening, farmers in the northern Indian village of Bandala finished tending to their rice and sugarcane crop and flocked to the local Sikh temple. As volunteers served strawberry juice in plastic cups and kids bustled around, happy to have an excuse to stay up late, they settled in plastic chairs, women to the front, men to the back.

They were gathered for an unlikely event: the screening of a film that was never granted a theatrical release certificate by Indian censors, and pulled from a streaming platform a day after its release online. The Indian administration has not disclosed its reasons for the blocking. India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting did not reply to NPR's interview requests.

There was little sign of the film's contraband nature in the promotional posters plastered all over the village shopfronts and playground walls. As based on real-life events that addressed the history and identity of Sikhs, a religious minority within India numbering more than 20 million individuals and forming a majority in the northern state of Punjab, they advertised the movie, titled Satluj.

This photograph taken on July 15 demonstrates villagers watching the film Satluj during a community-led screening at the Gurudwara Singh Sabha in Punjab's Gurdaspur city. Throughout Punjab, Sikh religious bodies and political groups have been hosting Satluj film screenings in temple courtyards, community halls and village squares with viewer numbers swelling. Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images hide caption. Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images.

Satluj is a biopic of Jaswant Singh Khalra, an activist who was killed after uncovering extrajudicial killings carried out by security forces, primarily the Punjab police. When the Indian army stormed and damaged the Golden Temple, one of the holiest shrines for Sikhs, during a gunfight with militants that had sought refuge there, this occurred after the separatist movement turned violent in 1984. The after decade witnessed a number of killings of civilians, militants and state authorities, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguard. India cracks down on social media jokes criticizing prime minister.

Ordinarily, Satluj would have joined the long list of films that the Indian administration has blocked, or forced directors to tone down over recent years. But the ostensible banning of Satluj triggered something else: rare defiance against the Hindu nationalist administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In cities and villages throughout Punjab, Sikh leaders called on their community to watch it. In its spiritual capital Amritsar, activists and political parties staged rallies opposing the ban. Plenty of organized screenings in Sikh temple courtyards and public streets. Others downloaded bootleg copies and shared them on WhatsApp and YouTube.

Such pushback against the state's diktats is quite unusual, notes Sanjay Srivastava, a sociologist at SOAS University of London. "It does reflect a genuine feeling on the ground that the issues covered in the film have not been entirely resolved, " he notes. The militant movement for a Sikh state.

After the Indian administration blocked the screening of Satluj, Sikh religious groups and civil society organizations in Amritsar district rallied in backing of the film in the second week of July. Omkar Khandekar/NPR hide caption.

Satluj is set during the '90s, a few years after a Sikh separatist movement had turned militant. Thousands of Sikhs died in clashes and gunfights with Indian security forces. Plenty of fled to countries like the U.S. And Canada and sought asylum.

Sarabjit Singh Verka, a lawyer with the nonprofit Punjab Human Rights Organisation in Amritsar, has represented plenty of victims of the violence. He notes Indian authorities back then were desperate to end the violence. "Some police officers on trial confessed to me in private that they were allowed to kill militants who had killed two or more people, " notes Verka. "The police called the policy 'bullet for bullet'."

This carte blanche, Verka notes, kicked off since civilians were often too scared to testify against militants in the court. It allowed numerous to go free. "But some officers turned this into an extortion racket. They would kidnap young men and demand ransom from their families. Some additionally staged shootouts and cremated bodies to cover up the evidence."

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Against the backdrop of this violence in the 1990s, Amritsar resident Jaswant Singh Khalra quit his job at a local bank to document such killings. In Satluj, one of India's top stars, Diljit Dosanjh, plays his role.

Using municipal and crematorium records, Khalra compiled a list of around 2, 000 youths that he asserted the police had killed in his home district of Amritsar. He then approached the Punjab High Court and the Supreme Court, claiming the toll throughout the state of Punjab could be up to 25, 000.

Human rights lawyer Verka notes that number is probable an exaggeration. "The administration should've nevertheless set up a truth and reconciliation commission to ascertain the truth. They didn't."

In 1995, a few months after he created the allegations, Khalra disappeared from his home. His body was never discovered. A decade afterwards, an Indian trial court convicted six police officers for his abduction and murder. "And while the government compensated some victims, most perpetrators got away, " adds Verka.

He notes Indian authorities didn't want to answer for state excesses then – and they don't appear to want it now.

Villagers watch a special screening of the film Satluj at a Sikh temple at Tatley village, in Punjab's Gurdaspur district, India, on July 8. Prabhjot Gill/AP hide caption.

Notably, the filmmakers of Satluj say they were ready to release it in cinema halls by December 2022. In an interview with NPR, director Honey Trehan recalled that authorities on India's film certification board stalled them for almost four years. Trehan recalled arguing with a board official that the film was based on news reports and court testimonies: "He looked at me and said, 'Who speaks the truth so loudly in today's times?'".

Filmmakers don't need an official certificate to put up their works online. But two days after releasing the film in July, the streaming platform Zee5 took it down with a cryptic Instagram post blaming "current developments." As individuals kicked off screening bootleg copies, the service noted it was "doing everything" to bring the film back. The film remains unavailable on the platform.

Jagmohan Singh Raju, general secretary of the ruling BJP in Punjab, notes authorities were concerned that the film's portrayal of police violence could revive sentiments of Sikh separatism, a threat New Delhi views with heightened urgency after escalating tensions with overseas Sikh diaspora communities.

Over recent years, India's Hindu nationalist administration has repeatedly criticized countries like Canada and the United Kingdom for harboring Sikh separatists. In 2024, the United States charged an Indian intelligence agent for conspiring to kill one such separatist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, in New York. Canadian authorities additionally charged four Indian nationals linked to jailed Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's network with the 2023 murder of separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Analysts say fearing that international activism could reignite unrest at home, Indian authorities treat historical narratives like Satluj not just as movies, but as potential security risks.

Still, the BJP official Raju acknowledged that one film wouldn't immediately radicalize an audience. "It doesn't happen overnight that a crowd will gather and they become separatists, " he remarked. But it would trigger that kind of thinking. "This first seeps into your mind, gets into your psychology, then someone plays on that psychology. It's a long game."

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Film journalist Anna M.M. Vetticad notes the way the Hindu nationalist administration reacted to Satluj follows their understanding of the power of cinema. "This government clearly considers cinema as a way of influencing mindsets, as a means of propaganda, " she notes. "You can see that from the spate of Hindi cinema that is completely Islamophobic, pro-BJP and doing PR for this government."

She adds that the idea that the movie would trigger separatist feelings missed the point of Satluj. "It is focusing on human rights violations by those in authority. And when an individual investigated it, he was murdered for doing so."

Ranjit Singh Babbar demonstrates a photograph of his father, Atma Singh. This person he states was abducted and killed by the Punjab police in 1990. Omkar Khandekar/NPR hide caption.

For the audience who watched Satluj at Bandala and other villages, the public screenings were regarding something else.

In 1990, Ranjit Singh Babbar was 3 years old when police from Punjab's Kapurthala district detained his farmer father, Sardar Atma Singh. Babbar claims his father had no association with the militants, yet the police demanded an equivalent of $12, 000 to release him. "My family sold land, gold and put it together. But when they returned with the ransom, the police remarked it was too late."

Babbar demonstrates a passport-size photo he carries in his wallet of a young man with a lush beard, wearing a gray turban. "That's the only memory of my father today, " he notes. "The administration never issued his death certificate. We couldn't even do his funeral rites. Police killed him and threw his body into a river."

Babbar notes Jaswant Singh Khalra's fight for justice represented hope in India's democracy. "The blocking of his biopic sends the opposite signal, " he notes. "It makes us Sikhs feel like second-class citizens."

Taken together, the developments around how India' s blocking of a film exposing real point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.