Honey Trehan’s “Satluj” — about a Sikh activist in the 1990s investigating extrajudicial killings — conjures heavy emotions despite its hagiographic hues. Just as intriguing as its provocations are the controversies surrounding its release, starting with its unexplained removal from the Toronto International Film Festival lineup in 2023, then under the title “Punjab ’95.” This year, it finally evaded India’s censors on July 3rd, with a global digital release on the Indian streaming platform Zee5, though it was pulled for Indian viewers within 48 hours, and for international audiences the following week. However, this seemingly ancillary drama is central to the film’s mission statement, as an exposé of power and its suppression of truth.
In a gloomy prologue, casual conversations between Punjab police officers precipitate equally casual executions by moonlight, under the pretext of curbing terror. Soon, the focus switches to an ordinary bank manager, Jaswant Singh Khalra (played by pop star Diljit Dosanjh), whose kindly demeanor sets him on a collision course with corrupt and dangerous forces. When an elderly aunt goes missing (after the police killing of her own husband), Khalra is driven to trace her whereabouts, though he ends up pulling on more threads than he bargained for.
“Satluj” takes its name from a major river running through the state of Punjab, the banks of which become a keeper of terrible secrets, as a disposal ground for bodies. Although the plot is structured like a mystery, the goings-on beneath each shadowy façade may as well be out in the open: everyone knows local authorities have been disappearing dissenters, but they’re too afraid to object. However, the more questions Khalra asks, the more he unearths the scale, process and harrowing paper trail of this illicit machinery, including mass cremations of people still marked “missing” by police. It isn’t long before he switches to activism full time, in the hopes of bringing national and international attention to these killings, but this paints a sizable target on his back.
Despite its didactic approach, Trehan’s drama trades in intimate textures, thanks in large part to Dosanjh’s measured performance as a man deeply stirred and disturbed by what he sees. The singer — whose recent North American tour landed him a guest spot on “The Tonight Show” — disappears into the role of an ego-less saint, whose presence isn’t so much biographical as it is liturgical. “Satluj” may engage in political discourse, but its primary lens is that of Sikh duty dichotomized with the casual cruelty of the state. Alongside cinematographer K. U. Mohanan and composer Marc Marder, Trehan formalizes this spiritual approach, through sounds and images with wrenching emotional impact that may as well emanate from the pit of your own stomach. The film frames spirituality as both a visceral response to injustice, and an unquenchable thirst to cure it.
At 164 minutes in length, “Satluj” has it share of speed bumps. Vast swaths of time unfold in mere voiceover, and some investigations and proclamations feel repetitive, as the film reinforces its point ad nauseam. However, despite its drama verging on courtroom testimony (and in some cases, unfolding as actual courtroom statements, the lingua franca of the mainstream Indian social drama), Trehan maintains a delicate balance between the ethereal and the personal. He rounds out each scene with remarkable performers no matter the size of their role, or their character’s location on a strict moral axis, thus creating a discernible and familiar reality within the borders of his pedagogy. But even within the movie’s powerful melodrama sits a secondary tale of fascistic process, one that speaks truth to power through implication and whisper.
Characters make frequent reference to political mood, and to major events in the 1980s — from assassinations to widespread riots — that thrust the Sikh community into the national spotlight. However, the film makes only passing mention of specifics, like the Khalistan separatist movement which forms the story’s backdrop, giving local police and politicians carte blanche for their brutality (and their persecution of Khalra). And yet, the machinery by which bystanders become dehumanized in “Satluj” speaks volumes about the default national perspective on these issues without giving them a name. When labels like “terrorist” and “insurgent” are bandied about, they become de facto death sentences. So while the film, on one hand, ignores the political perspective of its victims — including Khalra — its wide-spanning rebuttal to government overreach becomes more palatable to mass audiences in the process.
The result has thus far spoken for itself. After years of censorious government demands that include over 120 cuts, the version of “Satluj” out in the world is an uncompromised vision despite its bloat, and has seen rogue community screenings across India since its removal. The medium has become the message, ensuring that the very act of engaging with the film becomes akin to searching through records long-buried. With Dosanjh as his muse and moral conscience, Trehan constructs a sense of enormous occasion around each discovery, imbuing this tale of suppressed history and stripped personhood with the tremendous weight it deserves.
