I want to talk about a film that everyone needs to watch. It’s a film that the government is trying to suppress. In this blog post, I will talk about it. Even for me, it’s hard to watch. It took me several days to watch it because it just keeps disappearing from YouTube. In this blog post, I will tell you about the film and why the Indian government is trying to make it harder to watch.
Satluj (also known as “Punjab ’95”) is a 2026 Indian biographical drama film directed by Honey Trehan, starring Diljit Dosanjh as human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.
It depicts Khalra’s real-life investigation into thousands of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings/cremations by the Punjab Police during the Punjab insurgency (1980s–early 1990s). The film highlights state-sanctioned violence, police brutality, and one man’s fight for truth and justice amid systemic repression.
The Indian government (via the Central Board of Film Certification or CBFC, and later broader intervention) has heavily restricted it for these main reasons:
• Censorship Battle: The CBFC demanded 127 cuts before certification for theatrical release. The filmmakers refused, seeing it as unacceptable mutilation of the story. The film was delayed for years.
• Security and “Anti-India Forces” Concerns: Officials cited national security risks. They argued that parts of the film could be “misused by anti-India forces,” sympathize with terrorism/separatism (Khalistani elements), or undermine sovereignty by focusing on police excesses without enough balance on militant atrocities during the insurgency.
• Rapid OTT Takedown: It bypassed theatrical certification and dropped uncut on ZEE5 (July 3, 2026). Within ~48 hours, ZEE5 pulled it in India.
My take is this: people should be given the freedom to watch whatever film they want. The Indian government has no fucking business intervening in deciding what’s good for people and what’s not. Let people make up their own minds. I can understand how Modi’s dictatorship is ruining freedom of speech in India. Propaganda films that promote the government are promoted and given tax exemptions, while true stories that show human suffering and pain are suppressed. This is what the new India has become! Too sad to see.
