Support for Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Punjab ’95 comes from unexpected quarters, as the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee backs Honey Trehan-directed biopic on human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra
Diljit Dosanjh
With the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) coming down hard on Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Punjab ’95, there was bound to be pushback. Earlier this week, mid-day reported that the CBFC had doled out nearly 120 changes to the Honey Trehan-directed biopic on human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra (Cut, cut till you edit history? Sept. 25) Now, Gurcharan Singh Grewal, General Secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), has expressed his support for the film.
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Grewal has objected to the CBFC’s recommendations, which range from rechristening the film, to Khalra’s character being renamed. When mid-day reached out to Grewal, he was surprised that a film on Khalra—who had played a critical role in investigating the disappearance and killing of Sikh youths during the Punjab insurgency between 1984 and 1994—would have such a hard time with the censor board.
“The job of the CBFC, in my understanding, is to eliminate anything that questions the country’s unity, that attacks faith or [incites] violence. We stand with the film. Jaswant Singh Khalra was a people’s man. He was beyond party lines. What would they get from removing his name from a film based on his work? Why should the title be changed? This is a part of Punjab’s history.”
Jaswant Singh Khalra is portrayed by Diljit Dosanjh in the biopic
Grewal is keen to see the biopic without the cuts. He lamented, “After 120 cuts, what will remain of the film?” To him, making changes to the biopic feels like an attempt to change Punjab’s history. “Khalra became a key figure after the anti-Sikh riots and subsequent atrocities, which led him to advocate for the rights of those affected by police brutality. His investigations revealed that police death squads were operating in secrecy, abducting individuals, torturing them, and then cremating their bodies without proper identification. In Amritsar alone, he identified over 2,000 Sikh men who were unaccounted for. I know of people, who have received compensation from the court, because of his work.”
Jaswant Singh Khalra and Grewal
Grewal also opposed the idea of art being a product of the country’s ruling party. “This film is important because it is about a people’s man. This is not The Kashmir Files [2022] or The Kerala Story [2023]. Did they suggest removing [Narendra] Modiji’s name from his biopic or [Vinayak Damodar] Savarkar’s name from his biopic? ”
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