'Satluj' opens Punjab’s unfinished conversation

HONEY Trehan's film Satluj has reignited the debate on the number of Sikhs and Hindus killed during the terrible phase of militancy in Punjab, from the 1980s to the early 1990s. The significance of the film's portrayal of alleged human rights excesses by the Punjab government has been lost in claims of greater victimhood. The almost complete silence of a non-Sikh narrative has led even saner voices to argue that Hindus should speak up. The debate has thus been presented as a communal issue: Sikhs versus Hindus.Much has been said about the film and I shall refrain from commenting on it. My concern is the debate it has sparked. While religion is fundamental to the period around which Satluj is set, the rise of the so-called “Khalistan movement” should also be viewed through the historical lens, particularly its parallel and contrasting urban and rural worlds.The Partition did not give time for a catharsis to any of its communities. Punjabi Muslims soon realised that their language, music, customs and traditions became targets of successive military dictatorships in Pakistan.Like Sindhi Hindus, Punjabi Hindus could not completely assimilate with the Hindus of the mainland. Wherever they were scattered in India, they carried their Punjabi identity and unique customs. The past never left them. The argument that Muslims got Pakistan and Hindus got Hindustan, while Sikhs got nothing, is logically flawed. How can pain be divided on the basis of religious identities?Punjabi religious identities emerged from a common social base of Jats, Rajputs, Khatris, Aroras, Brahmins, Mahajans and a variety of Dalit communities. Yet, since the medieval period, there was a major contrast between the urban and rural worlds of Punjab. These contrasting worlds shaped the Punjab of the early twentieth century. Urban Punjab was embroiled in reformist debates demarcating their neat religious boundaries. Kahn Singh Nabha's famous counter-tract ‘Sikh Hindu nahin’ recalls the bitter debate with an Arya Samaj tract claiming ‘Sikh Hindu hain.’Muslim reformers also articulated puritanical identities. These debates were held largely among the literate Khatri, Arora, Aggarwal and Brahmin communities; Jats were relatively insulated. The Singh Sabha movement and the emergence of the SGPC sharpened these cleavages. When Prakash Tandon wrote Punjabi Century, 1857-1947 in 1961, it was an ode to an urban Punjabi world already lost.The Jat social world was mostly rural. The British maintained Jats’ rural and martial identity through such measures as the Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900. Jats emerged significantly as peasants as canal colonies expanded. They occupied important positions as lambardars and zaildars, while urban classes managed municipal governance. The rural landscape remained less influenced by the nationalist politics than urban centres and was dominated by feudal landlordism.By contrast, Khatris, Aroras and Brahmins lived predominantly in towns, engaged in trade, administration and the professions, and created the benchmarks of urban culture and economic life. From these communities emerged a formidable middle class that participated in social reform and strengthened the Congress-led freedom movement.This separation between the urban and rural was broken by the Green Revolution. Its financial benefits enabled larger landowners to demand a greater share in politics. By the 1960s, the leadership of the SGPC and Akali Dal had become more Jat-centred, displacing urban Khatris and Aroras. The benefits of the Green Revolution plateaued by the 1970s, coinciding with the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR).Although pitched from the standpoint of Punjab, the resolution reflected the aspirations of the Jat peasantry. Urban Hindus and Sikhs did not perceive it as representing their interests. It gave prominence to the Khalsa identity, appeared exclusionary to Sehajdhari Sikhs, and seemed protectionist to urban Punjab. This is significant because Punjab was the third most urbanised state in 1971. Therefore, urban communities rejected the ASR, and so did the Congress, the Communists and the BJP.These developments should be seen alongside the 1978 clash between the Nirankaris and the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, in which 16 people were killed. They culminated in the targeted killing of critics, including the founding editor of the Hind Samachar Group in 1981, the Dhilwan bus massacre in 1983 and the rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who moved into and fortified the Golden Temple.Urban Sikhs and Hindus emerged as strong critics of Khalistan. An overwhelming majority of Delhi Sikhs did not support militancy; yet they were massacred in 1984. The number killed would have been far greater had Punjabi Hindus not protected their Sikh neighbours. Militancy responded to this rejection by crippling businesses, industries and trade that sustained urban life, further alienating the communities that had rejected “Khalistan”.Militancy also attacked Punjab's shared inheritance. Baba Sri Chand diminished in Sikh memory, Hindu temples were desecrated and Sufi dargahs bombed.In 2013, while teaching a module on popular religion, I encountered a Sikh student with roots in Punjab who presented herself as Sikh, not Punjabi. This is what chaurasi (1984) did to Punjab, as courts failed the hapless victims. In 2023, a bania law student from Mandi Dabwali, then at Cambridge, wrote that he found it difficult to explain to friends why Hindu Agarwals of Punjab conduct chaunkis for Sufi mystics. Increasingly, it has become difficult to argue for the shared social roots of religious beliefs and customs.Militancy waned by the early 1990s, but a strange silence veiled Punjab. Peace did not heal it; nobody knew how to mourn. Some Punjabi Hindus deflected their angst into anti-Muslim rhetoric and strengthened the Ram Janmbhoomi movement.It is in this background that Satluj offers an opportunity for closure. This can come only when Hindus and Sikhs recognise their common historical roots, radical Sikhs give liberal democracy a chance and the State drops its veil of scepticism. A movement that cannot find common cause with a broader base cannot succeed.The support for the film across political lines signals a demand for accountability, not violence. Punjabi Hindu identity has stronger historical roots with Sikhs and Muslims than with the Gangetic plains. The Punjabi language is the umbilical cord connecting all three traditions. It is in sanjha — collective mourning — that the catharsis of Punjab's wounds and the possibility of closure can emerge.

'Satluj' opens Punjab’s unfinished conversation

It is in sanjha, collective mourning, that the catharsis of Punjab's wounds and the possibility of closure can emerge

Yogesh Snehi

'Satluj' opens Punjab’s unfinished conversation

It is in sanjha, collective mourning, that the catharsis of Punjab's wounds and the possibility of closure can emerge

Yogesh Snehi

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