ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
In India, the government recently banned a film about historical police abuses. However, rather than silence the story, the ban amplified it. As NPR's Omkar Khandekar reports, the backlash turned the blocked theater screenings into calls for state accountability.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
OMKAR KHANDEKAR, BYLINE: It's a hot afternoon in north India's Bandala village, when the loudspeakers of a Sikh temple crackle to life.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking in Punjabi).
KHANDEKAR: It's a reminder for people to come to the temple and watch the film "Satluj" that evening.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking in Punjabi).
KHANDEKAR: "Satluj" is a biopic of the activist Jaswant Singh Khalra with a runtime of nearly three hours. A group of policemen killed him in 1995 after he exposed thousands of extrajudicial killings carried out by them and their colleagues.
UNIDENTIFIED FARMER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED FARMER #2: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED FARMER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: By the evening, farmers return from their rice and corn fields. Hundreds gather in the temple courtyard and sit in gender-segregated rows. Volunteers distribute strawberry juice. The screen lights up.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAPPING)
KHANDEKAR: And the audience cheers for a man they see as a hero and whose story is effectively banned from the big screen in India.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SATLUJ")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, speaking Hindi).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Hindi).
KHANDEKAR: "Satluj" is set at a time when a Sikh movement for an independent homeland turned militant. In the '80s and '90s, thousands were killed in Punjab, an Indian state dominated by Sikhs. Sarabjit Singh Verka, a lawyer with the nonprofit Punjab Human Rights Organization, has represented many victims of violence.
SARABJIT SINGH VERKA: (Speaking Hindi).
KHANDEKAR: (Speaking Hindi).
VERKA: (Speaking Hindi).
KHANDEKAR: He says Indian authorities back then were desperate to end the separatist movement. He says the police slogan back then was bullet for bullet.
VERKA: (Speaking Hindi).
KHANDEKAR: Verka says some policemen kidnapped young men and demanded ransom from their families. Sometimes they staged shootouts and cremated the bodies to destroy evidence. Amid this violence, Jaswant Singh Khalra, the hero of the biopic "Satluj," quit his job at a bank and began documenting the killings.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SATLUJ")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character, speaking Hindi).
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
KHANDEKAR: Using municipal and crematorium records, Khalra estimated that the toll across the state of Punjab could be up to 25,000. Months after he made the allegations, Khalra was kidnapped from his home and never seen again. Human rights lawyer Verka says while the government at the time compensated some victims, most perpetrators got away.
VERKA: (Speaking Hindi).
KHANDEKAR: He says authorities did not want to answer for state excesses then, and they don't want to do it now. A day after streaming platform ZEE5 released the film in July, the news channel India Today reported...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NEWS ANCHOR: Center directed OTT platform ZEE5 to take down "Satluj" from the platform. Sources say that "Satluj" was taken down over security concerns.
KHANDEKAR: Jagmohan Singh Raju, a senior official from the ruling BJP Party, says authorities were concerned that the film's portrayal of police violence could revive sentiments of Sikh separatism.
JAGMOHAN SINGH RAJU: This first seeps into your minds. Then it gets into your psychology. Then someone plays on that psychology. It's a long game.
KHANDEKAR: And yet blocking the biopic triggered something else...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting in non-English language).
KHANDEKAR: ...Rallies against the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and creative ways of evading censorship. Since the ban, people have screened the film in temples and on public streets. Others downloaded bootleg copies and shared it on WhatsApp and YouTube. India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting did not reply to NPR's interview requests. Film journalist Anna M. M. Vetticad says "Satluj" is part of a growing number of films the government has ordered to tone down or block.
ANNA M M VETTICAD: This government has clearly considered cinema as a way of influencing mindsets. You can see that from the spate of Hindi cinema that is completely Islamophobic, pro-government, pro-BJP and doing PR for this government.
KHANDEKAR: Back in Bandala village, organizers said they held half a dozen more screenings after the one in July. A group of children in one such screening told NPR that they had watched the film two, three times. And what did they like about it?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English language spoken).
KHANDEKAR: (Non-English language spoken).
"It's history," they say, "our history." Omkar Khandekar, NPR News, Amritsar.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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