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Diljit Dosanjh’s Satluj is Punjab’s biggest controversy. How it got here

Even as it sharpened its political criticism of the Centre, the AAP government also sought to distance itself from the controversy over the community screenings of Satluj across Punjab.

Few films in recent memory have generated as much political, legal, and public debates in Punjab as Diljit Dosanjh’s Satluj. What began as a long wait for the release of a film based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra has now snowballed into the state’s central political issue.

In fact, the controversy surrounding Satluj only deepened after it was removed from the OTT platform ZEE5 within about 48 hours of its release. The move spawned community screenings of the film, introducing an unusual new dimension to the debate on censorship and free expression. And that is why the row over Satluj is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week. 

Rather than limiting the film’s reach, its removal from OTT led to the creation of an alternative — a volunteer-driven exhibition network that has taken the film into village squares and gurdwara courtyards in Punjab.

These community screenings, though initially inspired by the first such screening in a village in Rajasthan, are now being encouraged by political parties, with the Shiromani Akali Dal announcing that it will fund the screening of the film in all villages across Punjab. Punjab Assembly speaker and senior AAP MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan has also announced that the film will be shown at the community level in his constituency. 

The film’s journey has been anything but ordinary. Directed by Honey Trehan and starring Diljit Dosanjh, Satluj — originally titled Punjab ’95 — is based on the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, who documented alleged illegal cremations and disappearances during Punjab’s militancy years before he was abducted and murdered in 1995. The project remained in limbo for years after the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) sought extensive changes, including a change of the title and even Khalra’s name. The makers refused to dilute the narrative, leading to a prolonged certification battle that delayed its release by........

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