When? Satluj Released quietly on ZEE5 late Friday night, co-writer Niren Bhatt felt it like the end of a three-year battle. By Sunday evening, that relief vanished, when ZEE5 suddenly removed the biographical drama from its platform in India.
Sutlej co-writer Niren Bhatt questioned the film’s removal; Says, “If The Kashmir Files can exist, why can’t our film?”
A miraculous release, then silence
originally titled Punjab 95The film spent three years mired in controversy, facing an unprecedented 127 cuts demanded by the CBFC. In an interview with Variety India, Bhatt recalled that the digital release was a complete surprise. “To be honest, we found out on Friday evening when we got a message that it was live,” he said. “No one had a clue. We had completely given up hope that it would ever be released. Honey (Trehan) was in talks to RSVP, but even he didn’t believe it would actually happen until it dropped. For the last four years, we’ve been living with these endless cycles of negotiations, so when it finally went live, I really believed it was safe.”
Comparison with other controversial films
Bhatt opposed those suggestions Satluj This could be exploited by “anti-India forces”, pointing to precedents in Hindi cinema. “This argument is not at all correct,” he said. “If kashmir files can exist, if story of kerala can exist, then why can they exist without being called tools for international forces? Why has our film been chosen which will suddenly be misused by extremist elements? You can’t jump to far-reaching, disturbing conclusions to suppress a straightforward biography. It makes absolutely no sense.”
He said the repression has already backfired, with international curiosity leading to a wave of piracy as the film is available to audiences abroad. “Banning or restricting content is a wrong move as it only creates excessive curiosity,” Bhatt said. “People loved the movie. There are thousands of videos and tweets from audiences saying they cried or were left speechless. When a movie generates such a deep emotional response, word of mouth spreads fast. If people can’t find it on the official platform, they will inevitably look elsewhere. It’s very disappointing because this movie was in theaters. They stopped our premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, they stopped the international theatrical release and now they’re going to push it to OTT. But we are stopping.”
Reflecting on the emotional cost of the fight, Bhatt admitted uncertainty over what it means for the future of adventure storytelling in the country. “The world needs stories like this,” he said, “but after seeing what we went through, who would dare try to make a movie like this again?”
Sutlej is unavailable for streaming in India, with no update on when it might be back on ZEE5. Bhatt said that the producers are planning to challenge the decision in court, while the reasons behind the removal of the film have not been officially disclosed.
