Satluj | The whole truth

Download App As the banned film shines a light on the extra-judicial killings in Punjab after Operation Bluestar, a deep dive into the dark decade when the bloody militancy was brutally crushedA RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT: People gather at Harike Barrage for ardaas in the memory of Jaswant Singh Khalra and victims of alleged fake encounters, Jul. 14. (Photographs by Bandeep Singh) When the Modi government ordered that Satluj—the Diljit Dosanjh-Honey Trehan film—be pulled off the ZEE5 platform barely two days after its release on July 3, the official reason was to head off a security flashpoint in Punjab. The ban has had the opposite effect. A film that never saw a single theatrical screen has become the most-watched piece of Punjabi cinema in years, catapulted to blockbuster status by controversy alone. Blocked in India, it stayed live on the platform abroad for several more days, and the diaspora consumed it just as hungrily as Punjab did. Inside the state, community screenings in gurdwaras have drawn packed houses, filled with greying survivors of the Decade of Darkness sitting alongside a Gen Z that knows the period only from family memory, both moved to tears.