Political flashpoint

Download App The film has turned Punjab's contested past into an electoral issue for the assembly polls early next year Satluj never got a proper theatrical release, yet it has become one of the most politically charged cultural events Punjab has seen in years. The Bhagwant Mann government is already locked in one of its sharpest confrontations with the Akal Takht since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power in 2022. What began as a dispute over the state’s anti-sacrilege law has grown into a larger contest over who speaks for Punjab’s Sikhs—an elected government or the faith’s highest temporal authority. The Akal Takht has excommunicated Mann over a separate controversial video, summoned Sikh ministers and legislators to explain the government’s stand on the law, and asked the state to revisit it.