New Delhi (AsiaNews) – The trailer of Chauhaan, a new Indian action film, ends with a Kashmiri protester with injured eyes. Set in 2016 in Pulwama, it relays the story of violent clashes between Indian security forces and local activists.
A moment before the end of the movie, an Indian Army officer, played by actor Ajay Devgn, claims that soldiers are not at fault and that the pellet guns they use cause only “limited damage”.
In India, cinema is once again rekindling a debate over the ways events regarding the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir are narrated, and another, recent film highlights New Delhi’s difficulties in managing how the stories of separatist movements are told.
Remembering violence in Kashmir
The trailer of Chauhaan, released on 25 June in anticipation of the film's release in October 2027, chronicles the clashes following the killing of a local militant in July 2016, an event that sparked widespread protests against the Indian government across the region.
Over the following seven months, more than 6,000 people were injured by pellet guns, with 782 reporting eye injuries.
Since its introduction in 2010, Amnesty International has recorded at least 14 deaths linked to the use of this weapon. Its deployment followed protests that broke out after the killing, always by Indian security forces, of a Kashmiri teenager.
Some observers claim that after the abrogation of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in 2019, Bollywood has promoted narratives increasingly aligned to the positions of India’s incumbent ultranationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
In 2022, for example, the film The Kashmir Files, which is centred on the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus in 1990, earned more than US$ 8 million in a week thanks to government incentives; in BJP-ruled states, for example, local authorities gave film producers tax exemptions and offered public employees time off to go see it.
In Punjab, on the other hand, a film is censored
In Punjab, another film is suffering the opposite fate. Satluj, released under the title Punjab 95 after three years of censorship and nearly 130 cuts demanded by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which its makers never accepted, looks at the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, an Amritsar bank employee who in the early 1990s began investigating the disappearance of a friend and his mother, eventually discovering thousands of similar cases.
His research led him to claim that the police had secretly cremated nearly 25,000 bodies, without informing the families or following any legal procedure, an operation that was part of the crackdown on the Sikh nationalists whose goal is the creation of their own country called Khalistan, a question that is still a problem for the Indian government.
Khalra was taken from his home on 6 September 1995 and never seen again. Five police officers today are in jail for life in connection with his murder.
Directed by Honey Trehan and starring Diljit Dosanjh, the film was released on 3 July on streaming platform ZEE5, after the makers had rejected the cuts imposed by Indian censors. It was removed 48 hours later on security grounds, without any explanations.
A committee set up by the government to re-examine the case has upheld the ban, deeming the film a threat to national sovereignty. This, however, has not stopped the film from being viewed on other platforms.
In many villages in Punjab, the courtyards of Sikh temples (gurdwaras) have been turned into makeshift cinemas. Similar screenings are being held among Sikh diaspora communities in London, New York, and Toronto. Sikh communities abroad have expressed strong support for the cause of an independent Khalistan.
A fresh incrimination in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar
On 7 July, the US Department of Justice charged Lawrence Bishnoi, head of India's most powerful criminal organisation, and his right-hand man, Satinderjeet Singh, alias "Goldy Brar", with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a staunch supporter of Sikh independence, who was shot dead on 18 July 2023 outside the temple he led in Surrey (BC), Canada.
The indictment is part of an international operation coordinated by the United States, Canada and European countries, with a total of 37 defendants linked to three Indian criminal organisations accused of kidnapping, extortion, weapons and drug trafficking, as well as murder on commission.
Bishnoi is already behind bars in India for other offences, while Singh remains at large.
Nijjar’s murder provoked a diplomatic rift between Ottawa and New Delhi, that was eventually settled.
A few months after his death, then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly cited credible allegations of Indian intelligence involvement, a claim strongly rejected by the Narendra Modi government. The two countries went so far as to expel their respective diplomatic representatives.
Last September, Canada placed the Bishnoi gang on its list of terror organisations, accusing its members of intimidation against Sikh opponents abroad (many living in Canada) on behalf of India’s intelligence service. Last week’s indictment, however, did not mention the Indian government.
A Canadian police spokesman said that the findings by the US Department of Justice suggest that the Bishnoi gang acted alone, a point coming as relations between the two countries, frozen until 2024, are getting back to normal under Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took office in March 2025.
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