Satluj writer Niren Bhatt slams 'anti-India' charge on film: 'If The Kashmir Files can exist, why is our film chosen'

Niren Bhatt, the co-writer of Satluj, has questioned the opacity around the film's removal from Zee5, and dismissed the ‘anti-India’ charge against the film.

Honey Trehan’s Diljit Dosanjh-starrer political drama Satluj arrived on Zee5 on Friday without warning. The film, earlier titled Panjab 95, had been embroiled in a battle with the censors for four years. But then, just as quietly as it had released, the film was taken down two days later with no reason given. The film’s writer, Niren Bhatt, has addressed the film’s fate and bemoaned the lack of transparency around it all in a new interview with Variety India.

Satluj stars Diljit Dosanjh as human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.

Satluj writer questions opacity

Niren Bhatt has co-written the film with Utsav Maitra and director Honey Trehan. Talking about the film’s unceremonious removal from Zee5, he told Variety India, “I feel someone in the establishment has a massive problem with it, but the real issue is the complete lack of communication. For years, it has just been pure stonewalling. There is pin-drop silence from the CBFC. They will not tell us what their problem is, which parts offend them or who is making these calls. Even now, Zee5 issues a statement about 'current developments' but cannot explain what those developments actually are. If there is a problem, let us have a dialogue. But how can you have a dialogue when they just silently remove your work?”

On Tuesday, a PTI report cited a government source as saying that the film was removed due to ‘security concerns’. “They kept sitting on the suggested cuts and eventually released the movie quietly on OTT with a new title. OTT does not come under the CBFC's jurisdiction. When the matter came to the government's notice, Zee was asked to take the film down. The direction was given due to security concerns. The OTT platform was asked to follow the obligations under intermediary guidelines,” the official told PTI.

‘Anti-India argument does not hold’

Another report in NDTV had claimed that there were fears in the administration that the film would be used by ‘anti-India’ elements as propaganda. But Niren Bhatt does not agree. “That argument simply does not hold. If The Kashmir Files can exist, if The Kerala Story can exist, why can they exist without being labelled tools for international forces? Why is our film the chosen one that will suddenly be misused by extreme elements? You cannot jump to far-fetched, paranoid conclusions just to suppress a straightforward biography. It makes absolutely no sense,” he argues.

About Satluj

Satluj is based on the life and death of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a bank clerk who became the leading human rights activist in Punjab in the mid 90s after his investigation into the cremation of 25000 people in the state between 1984 and 1994. The film stars Diljit Dosanjh as Khalra. Produced by Trehan, Abhishek Chaubey and Ronnie Screwvala, under the banners MacGuffin Pictures and RSVP, Satluj also features Arjun Rampal, Kanwaljit Singh, Suvinder Vicky and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan in key roles.