Mainstream WeeklyIt is a story based on events in in Punjab in 1995; that was its first title also! Strangely, I was living close to the events while teaching in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar and staying with my journalist friend, the late Harbir Singh Bhanwar. Every evening on return from the University, we would talk days events. The GNDU library has on its staff literary friend, the late Punjabi poet Sheharyaar, but somehow I don’t even vaguely remember Paramjit Khalra, who was working there. In Kabir Park, just opposite to GNDU, many colleagues and friends like Harbhajan Bhatia and HS Bedi lived where I frequently visited! Yet I don’t remember the abduction and related news and conversations among colleagues! Why so? Strange loss of memory! Bhanwar, being The Tribune correspondent, was the most important journalist in the city, who had written Diary de Panne one month daily, noting down the June 1984 Golden Temple destruction event and yet after ten years -two years, 1994 and 1995, which I spent in GNDU- no memory of 1995 dark events! I was part of civil and Democratic Rights movements since 1977, still, why memory of 1995 fail me! I remember Ram Narayan Kumar, who made a big name in exposing police brutalities in those days and was depicted in the film Sutlej too!
Undoubtedly film is impactful in its depiction of reality. Punjab police created terror in those days, but so have Khalistani terrorists as well; yet state can not take the law into its own hands and use tactics adopted by terrorists! They can not kill or torture terrorists in retaliation to what khalistani terrorists did to innocent victims of their vicious design! British colonial state used these tactics during the 1857 revolt of Indian masses, when they were hanged in hundreds by ropes and trees! In 1872 Kuka revolt, they also shot people en masse; so was in the 1915 Ghadar movement, when in Singapore they killed Muslim Ghadarites en masse by shooting them while queuing up, standing by a wall! Hitler and fascist rulers did the same to Germans, Italians and Polish Jews!
Having a look at the post-1947 situation, in Telangana, armed resistance by communists it was two way affair; both sides fought a war. A large area of agricultural land was freed from feudal lords and given to poor and landless! But Naxal revolt was different in 1967! The term ‘encounter’ or ‘police encounter’ was coined and people were killed in large numbers by police in Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, Punjab was no exception, though the number of encounter killings was lower! I remember Punjabi poet Amarjit Chandan bringing out the Tarkunde report about police encounters of Naxals in Punjab, I had translated that in Hindi in 1977 as a JNU student, which was published in Dinman Hindi weekly with Hindi poet Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena’s comments.
The Naxal movement in Punjab had stopped individual killings and took to radical mass movements then and have strong base in students and peasants since then! But Sutlej does not refer to that black chapter of Punjab History! Though the killing of a khalistani activist’s mother inside a hospital, in the presence of Doctors and staff, is the most chilling scene of the film and presents the true picture of a devilish police person, the character of SP Ajit Singh, acting with the patronage of KPS Gill, is no less vile and devilish! The pitiable condition of honest lower police officers is realistically depicted. A DSP involved in those killings was later found responsible for killing Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s kin also; he is out on bail after so many killings and is seeking permanent bail! Even during the liberal Ribero police regime, Akali leaders and ex-minister like Prem Singh Chandumajra were subjected to third-degree torture, and only media exposure could save him from further tortures!
The film keeps the audience spellbound by the restrained personality of the main character, Jaswant Singh Khalra, played elegantly by Diljit Dosanjh, whose name film has gained much traction and attraction! Ironically, Jaswant Khalra, who was influenced by Bhagat Singh and Naujwan Bharat Sabha like Chandumajra, but their religious Avtar took them away from Bhagat Singh’s atheist socialist path! The dominance of religious fundamentalism took the life of popular student leader Pirthipal Randhawa also, who was killed by an Akali-patronaged killer! The murder of Randhawa was a turning point in Punjab politics; farmers were turning to mass radical movements in the form of the Wahikara Union, but still with old aggressive postures of resisting police violence with counter-violence! Only in 2019-2021 farmers’ movement they learnt to suffer but not counterattack the police, which always wanted a ruse to hit back and crush!
Sutlej is one part of Punjab’s tragic reality; Jaswant Singh Khalra has best represented it in reel and real! But the picture of Punjab reality will be complete only when biopics on eminent Punjab personalitiesJaimal Padda, Pash, Darshan Singh Canadian, Prof. Vishav Nath Tiiwari (PU Chandigarh), Dr. Ravinder Singh Ravi (PU Patiala)Deepak Dhawan, Arjun Singh Mastana, Baldev Singh Maan and many more killed by Khalistsni terrorists will be presented in one or more reels in a real manner, then Punjab and India together should reflect over religious terrorism, state terrorism and left wing extremes all together in wider perspective and look for an humanist alternative, where one could imbibe the spirit of ninth Guru Teg Bahadur- Bhay Kahu ko det Nahin , Na Bhay Manat Aan-may be some spelling errors but spirit is clear —‘Neither I terrorise anyone, nor get terrorised by anyone!’ The Gen Z movement’s victory has proven that, through their fight against state terrorism created in the country for last 12 years! Punjab, Haryana and West UP farmers also smashed this state terror, and Nishtha Jain filmed it well in the ‘Farming the Revolution’ documentary! But the Gen Z movement will give rise to immense creativity, including making Biopics like Sutlej! Sutlej is a nice artistic representation of a decade of tragic Punjab reality; in one sense, Udta Punjab was also another representation of post 1995 Punjab reality! There was a good film on the Telangana armed struggle, MaaBhoomi, made in 1979 by Gautam Ghosh! One expects more such films from Amir Khan, Kiran Rao, Neeraj Ghaywan, Anurag Kashyap, Anubhav Sinha and many more talented film-makers; of course, they all will have to go through what Sutlej has gone through at the hands of an oppressive regime, but there must be a Gen Z moment in the film world as well to tear the fear further!
(Author: Chaman Lal is a retired professor from JNU, New Delhi. His email id is prof.chaman[at]gmail.com)