The ongoing censorship war around Diljit DosanjhThe human rights biopic of ‘Satluj’ has taken an explosive turn. Renowned director and actor Anurag Kashyap has officially expressed anger at the central government’s sudden decision to apply a digital blackout to the film, noting that administrative bans end up backfiring by amplifying public intrigue. Sharing his initial reaction through his official Instagram stories, Kashyap reposted ZEE5’s formal announcement about the title being temporarily suspended in India.
Anurag Kashyap tells fans to watch ‘Satluj’ regardless of whether it is on OTT or not
The famous actor and filmmaker shared his thoughts on the ongoing ‘Satluj’ controversy and shared that he stands by the fact that the film should be released. Initially, he took to his Instagram stories to share a post from the OTT hosting platform, announcing that ‘Satluj’ would not be available online on their platform for now.Kashyap posted the statement along with his own caption that read, “The problem with banning something is that the more you ban something, the more people want to watch it. I wasn’t even planning to watch this movie, but now I’ll have to watch it to understand why it was banned.”He later posted another story with an edit of the film shared by a fan online. In the screenshot, the scene showed Arjun Rampal on the cover, along with the words “This scene is the main reason to remove the film from OTT”. The filmmaker also urged the audience to watch the film regardless of whether it was available on any OTT platform, stating that they should watch it even if they have to get their hands on the pirated version. He added, “Plz sab log dekho, pirate karo par dekho” (Please watch it everyone, hack it if you have to, but watch it).
About ‘Satluj’
Set around the 1990s during the insurgency era in Punjab, the film follows the life of activist Jaswant Singh Khalra who investigated and collected evidence of thousands of illegal burnings and human rights violations during that time, along with his connection to corrupt police personnel. Diljit Dosanjh leads the film, which also stars Arjun Rampal, Kanwaljit Singh, Suvinder Vicky and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan.The film had been on hold for about 3-4 years due to CBFC certification issues. Earlier reports suggested that the board advised filmmaker Honey Trehan to make more than 120 cuts in the final cut of the film. The uncut version was posted online on ZEE5 recently; however, within 48 hours, it was removed from the portal until further notice.
The center says ‘Satluj’ was released without the certification process being completed
ANI recently reported that the film was not cleared by the certification board, due to which it has been pulled from India for now. A statement also shared that “Satluj did not have the required certification for a theatrical release. Instead of complying with the certification process, the producers changed the title of the film and released it on an OTT platform on Friday.”Diljit Dosanjh had earlier commented during his last live session about the possibility of the film being pulled from the platform, which became a reality just a few hours later. During the same live, he shared that even though he was disappointed with everything, he was still happy with the response the film was getting and that he was watching the videos that fans had shared online.