Do Govind Ram and Rajan ring a bell? No? Then let me tell you, had Govind Ram been alive he would certainly have been portrayed as a villain in a film like Satluj. We’ll talk about what happened to him and Rajan later. Let’s discuss the film first.
I saw the movie and many times I felt the film was peddling half-truths and biased narratives about that time. Despite being a votary of freedom of speech, some facts kept gnawing at me throughout the film. Neither was K.P.S. Gill a villain nor the Punjab police a gang of brigands. The fight wasn’t limited to police and the terrorists; it went deeper, threatening the very soul of Punjab.
The distress everyone was facing can be understood in the account of Major A.K. Ravindran. One afternoon, acting on a tip-off near Harike, he reached the spot to find a mother and her three distraught daughters. He hunted the terrorists and after killing them talked to the women.
During the conversation, the ordeal the women narrated moved even the most battle-hardened soldiers to tears. The terrorists, the self-styled religious zealots, raped the women through the night. Their bodies bore deep teeth gashes. This wasn’t an isolated incident but an example of a long list of atrocities from that era. Satluj conveniently forgets it.
Similarly, on 15 June 1995, in Ludhiana district terrorists killed 76 train passengers in two separate incidents. Those gunned down were non-Sikhs profiled and segregated exactly the way people were killed in Pahalgam after identifying their religion. Many such mass killings were carried out during those days, but Satluj remains silent on the issue.
I have been a witness to those dark turbulent days in Punjab between 1980 and 1990. The shops would close at sunset, and people no longer trusted even their close friends fearing betrayal. Thousands fled Punjab. They included both Sikhs and non-Sikhs. According to many studies between 1981 to 1993, 20,000-22,000 people perished in terror violence, half of them ‘civilians’. The highways would remain closed throughout the night and the buses would ply under armed police protection. Trains crossing through Punjab would empty out in Haryana. Even Chandigarh, Karnal, Delhi, Mumbai and other parts of India were not immune to Punjab terrorism.
Satluj doesn’t talk about this either.
The film fails to mention that when Gill assumed the responsibility as director general of the Punjab police in 1988, the law and order situation in the state had completely collapsed. The terrorists would release a “hit-list” against them and their terrified family members would issue appeals in newspapers claiming that their family member in police is a devout Sikh who believes in Sikh gurus and Guru Granth Sahib.
What Gill achieved is unparalleled; no other police officer before or after him could achieve that feat. That’s the reason banning Satluj doesn’t seem irrational.
Now, let’s come back to Govind Ram. He was a 1975-batch IPS officer. He was posted in terrorist infested Batala district. One day, he took his son Rajan to market to buy stationery. Terrorists ambushed the father-son duo and the attack left Rajan dead. After the incident, citing security reasons, Govind Ram was transferred to Punjab Armed Police’s 57th Battalion as its commander.
Paramilitary campuses are considered safer than civil police establishments. On 10 January 1990, while working in office, a bomb kept in the desert cooler exploded, killing Govind Ram. It seems terrorists and their informers had infiltrated the most secure of government places.
Meanwhile, what was Satluj film’s hero Jaswant Singh Khalra doing at the time? He edited a magazine, Khalistan Liberation. Khalra considered Bhindranwale as the guiding light of the Sikhs. He viewed Indira Gandhi’s killers as greater martyrs than Bhagat Singh. It’s possible he took on the mantle of a human rights activist when he saw peace returning to Punjab and Punjabiyat tentatively but steadily re-establishing in the society. His voice carried more weight in the gurdwaras of Canada and Britain than in Punjab.
In 1995, he vanished and later his body was found in Satluj. It shouldn’t have happened but innocent Hindus shouldn’t have been butchered. Patriot Sikhs shouldn’t have been killed either. Human rights of the policemen and their families should have been protected, too.
Satluj maintains silence on such issues. But then, we are in the age of propaganda films. People forget popular films don’t portray true history. They end up fomenting social discord. This trend needs to be checked once and for all.
Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan. Views are personal.