The ‘Satluj’ saga: How a film shining light on Punjab tragedy cannot reignite militancy

It took barely two days for the film “Satluj”, marking its release and removal on the OTT platform ZEE5, to drag Punjab’s “dark decade” back into everyday conversations. In the border belt of Majha, which bore the brunt of both militancy and police action, elders still recall that pain with a single Punjabi word: Santaap. Suffering. That memory, more than any film, explains why Punjab is unlikely to revisit those years.

Militancy did not emerge in Punjab because of one film, one speech, one leader or any one event. It grew over years on account of accumulated political grievances. The reorganisation of Punjab in 1966 left several contentious issues unresolved – from sharing of river waters and Chandigarh to the question of greater autonomy. These grievances did not automatically produce violence, but they created fertile ground for alienation.

Dark period

The situation worsened with a series of political and administrative missteps. The 1978 Nirankari clash in Amritsar on Baisakhi, in which 13 Sikh protesters – who were led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale – were killed and the accused later acquitted. The incident catapulted Bhindranwale, the then newly anointed chief of the Sikh seminary Damdami Taksal, to prominence.

Then followed a series of killings, beginning with the assassinations of the Nirankari chief Gurbachan Singh in 1980, and then of Punjab Kesari editor Lala Jagat Narain, a fierce critic of Bhindranwale, in 1981. Bhindranwale was a suspect in both the cases but was let off, with then Union home minister Zail Singh himself telling Parliament that there was no evidence against him. The Congress, then led by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was trying to build up Bhindranwale as a counterweight to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the regional party that had mounted one of the fiercest resistances to the Emergency with thousands of its activists sent to jail.

But soon Bhindranwale became a law unto himself, running a parallel administration from the Golden Temple complex after he shifted there with an armed band of followers in 1982. Finding themselves on a weak ground, fragmented Akali leaders allied with him to launch the Dharam Yudh Morcha to demand greater autonomy for Punjab.

The botched up talks between the Centre and the Akalis proved to be the last straw. The subsequent fortification of the Golden Temple complex in 1983 (DIG A S Atwal was shot dead moments after stepping out of the complex), June 1984 Operation Blue Star – in which hundreds, some say thousands, including Army personnel, were killed, with the Akal Takht extensively damaged – the assassination of Indira Gandhi in October 1984 and the subsequent horrific anti-Sikh massacres, transformed a political crisis into a full-blown insurgency.

Militancy flare-up

Alongside political concerns were intensely personal grievances. Maj Gen Shabeg Singh, a hero of the 1971 war who helped Bhindranwale fortify the Golden Temple complex, was dismissed from the Army shortly before retirement on what were widely seen as trumped-up corruption charges. Gurbachan Singh Manochahal – who would later become one of Punjab’s most dreaded terrorists after floating a militant outfit called Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK) – had been dismissed from the army after he broke the nose of an officer who had hurled an abuse at him for coming late from leave.

Once violence had taken root, arms, training and logistical support flowed freely from across the border. The late Kanwar Pal Singh Dhami, president of the Akal Federation, who crossed over to Pakistan after fleeing from the Golden Temple complex during the Operation Blue Star, later recounted his shock when an ISI brigadier showed him a model of the Golden Temple and his exact location inside it.

The years that followed plunged Punjab into an abyss of violence and fear. Militants unleashed waves of assassinations, bombings, massacres, and Talibani diktats on what to wear and how to celebrate, while the state’s counter-insurgency drew allegations of excesses. Many Hindu traders fled Punjab. Ordinary Punjabis bore the brunt of the conflict as ideologues such as the London-based Sohan Singh exploited the turmoil to advance the cause of Khalistan, aided by the Pakistani networks.

Khalra’s arc

It could be argued that the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer “Satluj”, based on the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, does not tell the complete story of Punjab militancy. It does not, because it never set out to do so. It tells the story of one man, Khalra, who challenged the excesses that marked the state’s victory over militancy.

Khalra, a social activist and bank director in Amritsar, was drawn to his cause after he found the body of a colleague who had gone missing, cremated as unclaimed. A closer look at the registers maintained by the three cremation grounds in Amritsar, showed an unusually large number of 2,000 unclaimed bodies. Parents had long agonised about sons picked up for questioning by the Punjab Police who never returned. There were also accounts of near-identical “encounters” in which “militants” were killed after supposedly opening fire at police nakas.

Khalra forced the nation to look at this ugly reality. After his abduction and killing in 1995, the CBI confirmed 2,097 unlawful cremations at these three Amritsar sites as per its 1996 report, and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) later acknowledged about 2,059 “illegal cremations”.

Then Punjab DGP K P S Gill, dubbed “supercop” by the police personnel and his admirers for quashing militancy in the state, often argued that human rights campaigns “undermined” the hard-won peace. Many others believe Khalra reminded the country that the rule of law cannot become a casualty even in the fight against terror. Both perspectives continue to coexist in Punjab’s public memory.

Khalra’s disappearance, soon after the assassination of chief minister Beant Singh, and the torture he suffered at the hands of cops remain one of the darkest and most disgraceful chapters of that era.

To suggest that a film could reignite militancy by opening old wounds is perverse logic. Punjab’s tragedy was not born in a cinema hall. It grew from years of unresolved political tangles. Those complex circumstances could not be recreated by a film. But they can be forgotten. And to forget history, even a fairly recent one, is to repeat it. That is dangerous.

(Manraj Grewal Sharma is Resident Editor of The Indian Express in Chandigarh)