<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/18/satluj-honey-trehan-film-india-censors-do-not-want-you-to-see>
"For as long as he has been a film-maker, there is one story Honey Trehan has
wanted to tell above all.
Growing up in the Indian state of Punjab, Trehan saw firsthand the devastation
wrought by police who carried out tens of thousands of killings and illegal
cremations in the 1990s, as they cracked down on a separatist insurgency. To
those in Punjab, the period remains one of the darkest in India’s modern
history. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the activist who exposed the crimes and was
murdered in the process, is a national hero.
By 2022, Trehan’s movie about Khalra and the crimes of Punjab police was
completed under the title
Ghallughara – a reference to a historical massacre
of Sikhs – but the film would never reach Indian cinemas.
For more than three years, India’s film censorship board, which must approve
all cinematic releases, blocked the film from release. When it was finally
launched straight to a streaming platform last week, under a new title,
Satluj, it was taken down within 48 hours and banned on government orders as
a threat to national security.
Trehan describes the ordeal of trying to get
Satluj released as “dystopian”
and decries “undemocratic censorship” and alleged political interference under
the Narendra Modi government re-shaping India’s film industries. He claims
Indian cinema has been widely co-opted as a propaganda arm for the government’s
rightwing, religious nationalist agenda, where there is “only room for one kind
of story to be told”, particularly in mainstream Hindi films.
“It is clear to me that there is no creative freedom in India today,” says
Trehan. “When you see the level of censorship happening, films getting blocked
by the film board and banned from release, it makes you question: does
democracy exist in this country any more?”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
