Erasing Punjab’s History Won’t Heal Khalistan Hurt

The vanishing act of the film Satluj from an OTT platform three days after its release on last Friday triggers uncomfortable questions, the prominent being who is afraid of history.

The film is an attempt to re-live the Punjab of the turbulent years of the border state in the eighties and the nineties. Directed by Honey Trehan, it is based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, known for his exposure of the alleged illegal cremation of thousands of unidentified bodies during Punjab’s militancy years before being abducted in 1995. The film was held up by the Central Board of Film Certification for three years before it was released without cuts that were suggested by the censor.

The latest is that the Union government may refer the movie to an inter-departmental committee constituted under the IT Rules 2021 for a detailed examination of the film. It is now evident that the Government of India has concerns over the impact the movie can have on the people and hence its decision to allow it a free run.

Every party with a stake in the state’s politics, be it ruling AAP, the Congress or the Shiromani Akali Dal, has condemned the decision, which they believe cannot be taken by the OTT platform on its own. The state has a painful past and that cannot be erased through censorship, they hold. As Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhvinder Singh Badal put it, it is an assault on collective memory, truth and freedom of expression. “Punjab deserves to confront its past with honesty, not suppression,” Mr Badal said. Surprisingly, the Congress, which ruled at the Centre and in the state for the most part of the militancy-hit period, is also opposed to the attempts to keep the history of the state under shadows. The party holds that the movie depicts police brutality around Khalra’s abduction and murder. The various Sikh bodies have also expressed their outrage at the taking down of the film; the BJP, however, appears equivocal on the development.

It is a historical fact that Punjab once harboured divisive thoughts which were impractical in India’s constitutional scheme of things to implement. That the proponents of Khalistan took to arms to press for their demands, something a government which has to go by the Constitution and the law cannot approve of, is an accompanying fact. These, along with the genesis of the separatist argument, and who supported and encouraged it, will undoubtedly be subjected to ruthless examination by history. How it was put down by the state and how all suffered will also be subjected to scrutiny by the future generations.

Punjab’s memories of its troubled past have blood on every page. There were innocent people who were denied all the constitutional and human rights by the men in uniform as well as the terrorists. Then there are cops and troops who laid down their lives for the integrity of the nation. There are political leaders, starting with a Prime Minister who fell prey to terrorists’ bullets. Then there are the youth in their thousands who were charmed by a dangerous dream; there is no running away from their memories. Study of history and its mistakes is a necessary condition to avoid them in future; those who refuse are bound to repeat it. India cannot afford a repeat of those troubled times. The Union government must now persuade itself to be truthful to the state’s history and desist from muscling it to subjugation.