CHANDIGARH: With less than a year left for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, Diljit Dosanjh's film Satluj, which was removed from an OTT platform five days ago on national security grounds amid concerns that it could be exploited to garner support for the pro-Khalistan movement, has become the centre of a political controversy. The BJP-led Union government has constituted a committee to examine the removal of the film.
Political parties including the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Waris Punjab De, along with gurdwara management committees and youth clubs, have begun renting projectors and mini-trucks to organise public screenings of the film, which depicts the life and work of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. These screenings are also being used to shape political narratives and garner support.
Originally titled Punjab 95, the film is based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. Such is the public demand that some leaders of the ruling AAP and the main Opposition Congress have also started organising public screenings. While the ruling party has refrained from making any official statement, it has maintained that the BJP-led Centre ordered the removal of the film from the OTT platform.
Talking to this newspaper, Ajaypal Singh Brar, chief of Misl Satluj, said, "We estimate that across Punjab, in the last five days, anywhere between 500 and 700 screenings of the movie have taken place, mainly in rural areas, including villages and small towns. Leaders of all political parties — Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Waris Punjab De, Congress and AAP — are screening the film, besides youth clubs and gurdwara committees."
Explaining how the screenings are being organised, Brar said, "Youth groups, local leaders and others rent LED display screens for anywhere between Rs 6,000 and Rs 7,000 per day. While youth collect contributions, local party leaders often pay from their own pockets. As the movie has already been downloaded onto pen drives and laptops, it is screened using these devices. In the morning, announcements are made in villages and nearby rural areas that the movie will be shown at around 7.30 pm at a particular location. It usually starts around 8 pm. The venues are packed, especially with women and children."
Brar said that Misl Satluj alone had organised 52 screenings till Thursday in the districts of SAS Nagar, Ropar, Ferozepur, Faridkot, Fazilka and Bathinda. "We are showing the film at eight to 10 places every day as we have seven to eight small projectors of our own, while we hire the rest. The demand for screenings at different locations is high, and we receive many phone calls and messages every day requesting shows," he added.
When asked whether the screenings were setting a political narrative, Brar said, "Showing the movie is not about politics. It showcases our history, and we own it."
The basement hall of Govindpuri Gurdwara in southeast Delhi was packed to capacity on Friday evening as the management screened the film. More than 300 people, including men, women, the elderly and children, gathered to watch it. A heavy Rapid Action Force (RAF) contingent remained deployed outside the gurdwara, while several gurdwaras across the national capital also screened the film.
The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) has directed its elected office-bearers to organise screenings in their respective areas and is providing the film, sound systems and screening equipment such as projectors and LED televisions.
Meanwhile, the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) have announced that they will hold public screenings of Satluj across Punjab. Manpreet Singh Ayali, a senior leader of Waris Punjab De, said the outfit was receiving requests from across the state to screen the film.
Interestingly, the film was also screened earlier this week by Simar Pratap Singh Barnala, grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala, at his residence in Barnala. Surjit Singh Barnala served as Punjab Chief Minister from 1985 to 1987.
A senior Akali Dal leader said there was nothing wrong with screening the film and that it should be shown across the country, as its message was that those in power often commit excesses but do not go unpunished.
Meanwhile, AICC social media chairperson Supriya Shrinate accused the BJP of effectively banning the film because it was afraid of the truth it portrays. Accompanied by Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Shrinate questioned the BJP's silence. "Why is the BJP quiet? They must be scared because their own dirty linen might also come out," she alleged.
Union Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu dismissed the Opposition's allegations that the film was removed from the OTT platform on the orders of the BJP government. He said OTT platforms do not require government permission either to stream or remove films and that it was wrong to blame the government. However, he added that the film presented a grossly one-sided account of the Punjab tragedy. He pointed out that 35,000 innocent Punjabis, both Hindus and Sikhs, lost their lives to terrorism and warned that the film was being misused to create a false narrative.
In the film, Dosanjh portrays Jaswant Singh Khalra, who investigated the cremation of thousands of unidentified bodies in Punjab over a 10-year period from 1984 to 1994 before disappearing in 1995. In 2005, four Punjab Police personnel were convicted for his abduction and murder and sentenced to seven years in prison. Two years later, the Punjab and Haryana High Court enhanced their sentence to life imprisonment.
The film, originally titled Punjab 95, has faced repeated hurdles. In 2023, it was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) but was removed from the line-up without any official explanation from the organisers.
The social drama also ran into trouble with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which reportedly sought an unprecedented 127 cuts. The delay in obtaining certification forced the makers to postpone its release. Under its original title Punjab 95, the film was slated for a worldwide release on February 7, 2025, without any cuts except in India, but that release also did not take place.
As a result, other issues in the poll-bound state — including the Akal Takht's declaration describing Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann as anti-Guru ("Guru Dokhi") and anti-Khalsa Panth ("Khalsa Panth virodhi"), as well as the Mawan Dhiyan Satkar Yojana under which the AAP government provides Rs 1,000 per month to women — have taken a back seat.