For as long as he has been a filmmaker, Honey Trehan has wanted to tell one story above all: the one about the tens of thousands of killings and illegal cremations carried out by Punjab police in the 1990s during a crackdown on a separatist insurgency. By 2022, his movie about activist Jaswant Singh Khalra - who exposed the crimes and was murdered for his trouble - was finished under the title Ghallughara, a reference to a historical Sikh massacre. But it never reached Indian cinemas. For over three years, India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) blocked it. When it finally launched straight to a streaming platform last week under a new title, Satluj, the government banned it within 48 hours, citing national security threats.

Trehan calls the ordeal “dystopian” and decries “undemocratic censorship” under the Narendra Modi government, which he says has turned Indian cinema into a propaganda arm for its rightwing, religious nationalist agenda. “There is only room for one kind of story to be told,” he says. “Does democracy exist in this country any more?” The CBFC demanded 127 cuts, including removal of all mention of Punjab police, the killings, government, crematoriums, a former prime minister’s name, dates, images of the Indian flag, and even Khalra’s name and a scene showing his murder in a police station - an incident of historical record. They also insisted he change the name of Trilokpuri, a real Delhi area where Sikhs were massacred in the 1980s, to the invented “Khanpuri,” a Muslim-associated name. “This incident had nothing to do with Muslims,” says Trehan. “You could clearly see them trying to insert their Hindu-Muslim political agenda.”

Trehan isn’t alone. Filmmakers complain of an opaque process where any reference to government oppression, police brutality, or caste violence gets blocked. Self-censorship has become the norm. Meanwhile, films accused of fueling Islamophobia, like The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story, sail through with government tax breaks. Anna MM Vetticad, a film journalist, says the goal is “to create an atmosphere of fear and encourage self-censorship.” Trehan says few in the industry speak out for fear of retribution: “If you criticise, suddenly a police case could be filed against you.”

Since the ban, guerrilla screenings have popped up across Punjab - in village squares, gurdwaras, schools, and fields - sometimes with thousands attending. “It’s become a revolutionary act to watch it,” says Trehan. At a recent event, families of victims protested the ban. Ranjit Singh, whose father was tortured to death by police, says: “This film is, for me, an archive of him - of the injustices he bore on his body. I cried for days after watching it.”