Even as gurdwaras and villages across Jalandhar and its outskirts host special screenings of the controversial film “Satluj” following its ban on streaming platform ZEE5, the film is also drawing attention for the brief yet significant appearances of two actors from the city. 

Jalandhar-based advocate, theatre artiste and actor Neeraj Kaushik plays a human rights activist who accompanies the film’s protagonist, Jaswant Singh Khalra, portrayed by Diljit Dosanjh, on visits to victims’ families. City-based artiste Santosh Basra appears as a neighbour questioned by a CBI team searching for one of the characters.

Actor and singer Santosh Basra made a cameo appearance in the film Satluj. 

Kaushik has previously appeared in projects such as “Kohrra” —where he shared screen space with Suvinder Vicky, who also features in “Satluj” — and “Sadda Haq”, another film set against the backdrop of Punjab’s militancy era. According to Kaushik, while the makers expected some controversy because of the film’s sensitive subject, the scale of the backlash took them by surprise.

“‘Satluj’ was conceived in 2019 and shooting began in late 2020. At the time, many politically correct films were being made, and Honey Trehan and the team never imagined that a film depicting events from Punjab’s past would face objections of this magnitude. The film neither criticises any current political dispensation nor endorses separatist ideology. Therefore, such a large-scale controversy was unexpected, especially since approvals had been obtained from Jaswant Singh Khalra’s family as well as the SGPC. We expected some debate because of the subject, and there were a few permission-related issues during filming, but nothing on this scale,” he said.

Recalling his experience on the sets, Kaushik said his role was inspired by the network of human rights activists who worked alongside Khalra. 

“The work of human rights activist Ram Narayan Kumar, author of book “Reduced to Ashes”, along with several other activists who supported Jaswant Singh Khalra, is well known. I and several other actors portrayed human rights workers associated with Khalra. I was selected after an audition by casting director Varun Bajaj. Honey Trehan liked my audition. We shot for eight days across Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Chandigarh and Patiala. I have great admiration for Honey Trehan. He is a wonderful human being and his research is meticulous. We even filmed in villages where actual disappearances had taken place during the 1990s,” he said.

Kaushik shared screen space with both Diljit Dosanjh and Arjun Rampal, and spoke warmly about working with the two actors.

“Diljit Dosanjh is generally reserved on set, but he enjoys discussing important issues at length. He is deeply spiritual and very protective of junior artistes, speaking up whenever he feels they are not being treated fairly. Once, I asked him how he managed his hectic schedule and superstardom. He simply replied, ‘Kuch nahi haiga yaar, sab ainwai dooron lagda, asi vi onne ku hi khush ya pareshan haan jinna aam banda’ (Stardom seems big from afar. We are as happy or as troubled as any ordinary person),” he recalled.

Speaking about Arjun Rampal, Kaushik said, “He was extremely open, candid and free of any star tantrums. He interacted warmly with everyone on the set and had a very relaxed, easy-going personality. Among the film’s performances, his portrayal is one of my favourites.”

Reflecting on the growing number of OTT films and series centred on Punjab’s social and political issues, Kaushik observed that the state’s changing realities have provided filmmakers with compelling subjects.

“In Punjab, ‘Pehle pyaar mudda tha, ab takraar mudda hai’ (Earlier, love was the dominant theme; today, conflict is). Earlier, Punjabi stories revolved around legendary romances like ‘Heer Ranjha’, ‘Sassi Punnu’ and ‘Sohni Mahiwal’. But the state’s complex social and political realities have made Punjab fertile ground for filmmakers. Just as Anurag Kashyap often turns to Uttar Pradesh or Bihar to explore gang violence, filmmakers increasingly look to Punjab for stories about drugs, militancy, policing and conflict. These films are reflections of both the state’s past and its contemporary upheavals.” 

Jalandhar-based actor, singer and artiste Santosh Basra, who also makes a cameo appearance in the film, says, “It was a beautiful and serious project. Working on the film was a great experience. The controversy surrounding it was something we anticipated, as people have not forgotten 1984 and its aftermath. It was also long felt that a film on Khalra Sahib’s life and work needed to be made. This is an issue that resonates across communities in Punjab, as children from both Hindu and Sikh families lost their lives during those years.”

“On the sets, it felt like one big family. I feel proud to have been associated with such an important cinematic project of our times,” she says. Besides Neeraj Kaushik and Santosh Basra, several theatre artistes and actors from the region are part of the film, including Jalandhar-based theatre personality and actor Gurwinder Singh, Haryana-based theatre artiste and actor Rajindra Sharma (Nanu), and theatre actor Emmanuel Singh, among others. Rajindra has been a familiar presence in Jalandhar’s theatre circles and has also appeared in several Bollywood films.

Related  news: Khalra muder convict DSP Jaspal’s name also figured in abduction, disappearance of Shaheed

A passport remains the state’s strongest and most authoritative official evidence that its holder has been recognised as an Indian citizen for international purposes.

Illustration: The Wire, with Canva.

A recent public controversy has raised an important constitutional question: is an Indian passport merely a travel document, or does it signify something more? The issue arose from an unsolicited official statement that a passport is “only a travel document” and not proof of citizenship.

Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao rightly reminded us that citizenship is governed by the Citizenship Act, 1955, not the Passports Act. That proposition is legally unexceptionable. Yet it does not answer the real question: what is the legal and constitutional significance of a passport in a country that issues no universal certificate of citizenship?

The starting point must be the Passports Act, 1967. Curiously, much of the present discussion has overlooked the very language chosen by parliament. The Preamble of the Act states that it is “an Act to provide for the issue of passports and (emphasis added) travel documents, to regulate the departure from India of citizens of India and other persons…”. The deliberate use of two distinct expressions, in several sections of the Passports Act, cannot be dismissed as careless drafting.

A passport is undoubtedly a travel document, but a travel document need not be a passport. Refugees, stateless persons and certain foreign nationals may instead be issued documents such as ‘identity certificates’. Similarly, an Indian who is being extradited and whose passport is cancelled may be issued a travel document to enter India.

Parliament created two legal categories of documents, not one. To reduce a passport to “just another travel document” is to blur a distinction the statute itself deliberately draws.

There is a further reason the passport occupies a unique place in Indian law. Unlike many countries, India does not issue a universal certificate of citizenship. There is no single document handed to every Indian certifying nationality; certificates of citizenship are issued only in limited cases, such as registration or naturalisation. The overwhelming majority of Indians possess no such certificate.

Citizenship is therefore ordinarily inferred from a range of official records – birth certificates, electoral rolls, passports and school records – each serving its own purpose, none universally conclusive.

The passport nevertheless stands apart because of what precedes its issuance. Before issuing one, the passport authority must satisfy itself, through documentary scrutiny and police verification where required, that the applicant is entitled to receive it under the law. No other document commonly held by Indian citizens undergoes comparable scrutiny before issuance.

Electoral photo identity cards, too, are issued only to citizens, but that process rests primarily on declarations made within the electoral roll framework. A passport follows a separate and significantly more rigorous process because it is intended to establish the holder’s nationality before foreign governments.

That international function makes the passport unique. It is the instrument through which the Republic presents one of its citizens to the international community. When an Indian passport is presented to an immigration officer abroad, it embodies the government of India’s representation that the bearer is entitled to travel as an Indian national and to seek the protection of the Indian State.

Foreign governments do not independently investigate every traveller’s citizenship; they rely upon the issuing state’s certification contained in the passport. This reflects a long-established principle of international practice: passports are accepted because they embody the issuing state’s assertion that the bearer is one of its nationals.

None of this means that a passport creates citizenship. It does not. Citizenship is determined by the Constitution and the Citizenship Act, 1955, and a passport neither confers it nor overrides those laws.

If a passport is obtained by fraud or issued in error, it can be cancelled, and the underlying legal status determined afresh under the Citizenship Act. But invoking the possibility of fraud as an argument against the passport’s evidentiary value is erroneous. Birth certificates have been fabricated, electoral rolls have contained ineligible names and even citizenship certificates could eventually be procured by deception. No one suggests these documents are therefore without evidentiary value. Fraud is the exception; the law proceeds on the ordinary case, not the exceptional one.

Among the documents ordinarily available to Indian citizens, the passport reflects the highest level of official verification by the state. That is why the familiar words printed in every passport – requesting foreign states to allow the bearer to pass freely and extend assistance and protection – are not ornamental. They express the constitutional relationship between the Republic and its citizen beyond India’s borders.

The Supreme Court has recognised this constitutional dimension directly. In Satwant Singh Sawhney v. D. Ramarathnam (1967), decided even before the Passports Act was enacted, the court held that the right to travel abroad forms part of the personal liberty guaranteed by Article 21. Parliament responded the same year by replacing executive discretion with a statutory framework.

A decade later, in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), the Court reaffirmed that any restriction on a citizen’s passport must satisfy fairness, reasonableness and due process under Article 21. These decisions did not determine the legal status of citizenship. They established something equally significant: a passport is not an ordinary administrative document but one intimately connected with the exercise of a fundamental freedom.

One provision deserves particular attention. Section 20 of the Passports Act provides:

“Notwithstanding anything contained in the foregoing provisions relating to issue of a passport or travel document, the Central Government may issue, or cause to be issued, a passport or travel document to a person who is not a citizen of India if that Government is of the opinion that it is necessary so to do in the public interest.”

Some might read this as weakening the proposition that passports are intended for citizens. We think it does precisely the opposite. The very fact that parliament found it necessary to enact an express exception confirms the general rule. Ordinarily, passports are issued to citizens. Only in exceptional cases, and only where the Union government considers it necessary in the public interest, may that rule be departed from.

The present controversy appears to conflate two distinct questions. The first is whether a passport is conclusive proof of citizenship in every legal proceeding. Plainly it is not; courts must remain free to examine evidence wherever citizenship is genuinely disputed. The second is whether a passport is merely another travel document carrying no special evidentiary weight.

That is an altogether different question, on which the statutory scheme, administrative practice and constitutional jurisprudence all point in the same direction. A passport therefore occupies a different legal plane from other official documents.

It is therefore inaccurate to describe a passport as a certificate of citizenship, for the law employs no such expression. It is equally inaccurate to dismiss it as “just a travel document”. The truth lies between those two extremes. A passport remains the state’s strongest and most authoritative official evidence that its holder has been recognised as an Indian citizen for international purposes.

A contrary view would reduce diplomatic passports issued to ministers, senior government officials, ambassadors and the Chief Justice of India to mere travel documents bearing a different colour.

Parliament chose its words carefully. Those entrusted with administering the law should do likewise. For when the Republic places its seal upon a passport, it is doing far more than permitting international travel. It is formally vouching for one of its own citizens before the world.

Madan B. Lokur is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India. S.Y. Quraishi is former Chief Election Commissioner of India and a member of the Board of Advisers, International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm.

Arrests made in Imphal East and Thoubal districts during security operations targeting alleged extortion networks, with one rifle and ammunition also recovered

Another person with alleged links with insurgents was also nabbed and arms and ammunition were seized from his possession.

An insurgent belonging to the banned United Peoples’ Party of Kangleipak (UPPK) outfit was apprehended in Porompat area in Imphal East district on Saturday. He has been identified as Salam Bijanda Singh (37).

A militant of Kangleipak Communist Party (Nongdrenkhomba) was arrested from Wangkhei Ayangpalli in Imphal East district on the same day. Another cadre of KCP (Nongdrenkhomba) was also nabbed the same day from Khurai Nandeibam Leikai in Imphal East district. He has been identified as Md Motim (31).

Meanwhile, security forces arrested a person with alleged links with militants in Yairipok Pechi Road area under the jurisdiction of Yairipok police station in Thoubal district on Sunday.

A self-loading rifle with a magazine and 10 cartridges were also seized from the possession of the man, identified as Chagisongtanbou Nkhamnamai (46), the statement added.

Manoranjan Kalia, Pargat Singh warn minister against reopening Punjab’s old wounds

Video clips of dead, clean-shaven men from Punjab’s dark days of militancy on the X feed of Union Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu are being viewed with grave concern by both his fellow BJP leaders as well as Opposition leaders in the state. 

Speaking to The Tribune, senior BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia advocated restraint. “Punjab needs to remember that even during the darkest hours of terrorism, the state never witnessed communal clashes, even during the peak of the 1984 riots. That is why the videos posted by fellow party leader Ravneet Bittu on his X handle are not in the right direction. We need to bury our painful past and move ahead.”

Kalia was reacting to an archival documentary clip on the aftermath of a blast in Punjab targeting the minority community that was shared on Bittu’s X handle. “We lived as pehredars (guards) during those dark days. So even now, instead of providing fodder for a possible repeat of the past, we need to learn from our mistakes for a harmonious future. Selective videos and pictures do not tell the whole truth,” he added.

Asked why he was uploading videos and clips of dead people from the militancy era that clearly identified the community they belonged to, Bittu refused to comment. “The government has no role in allowing or stopping the screening of the ‘Satluj’ movie,” he told The Tribune. 

Punjab Congress leaders, both MLAs and MPs, said they were disturbed by the uploads and questioned how they were being allowed and how they had got past X’s strict content norms.

Congress MLA from Jalandhar Cantt Pargat Singh said, “The BJP is hell-bent on disturbing the hard-earned peace of Punjab. He (Bittu) is purely working on a political agenda of polarising voters. The timing of releasing and then banning the movie ahead of the elections raises several questions,” he told The Tribune.

Former Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar said, “The issue that Bittu is referring to is very sensitive. I would like to go through all the details and will address the media shortly.”

Current BJP president Kewal Dhillon refused to comment on the issue. “I can only say that the period in question during the Congress rule was among the most unfortunate the state ever witnessed,” he said.

However, senior BJP leader and former national vice-president of the party, Laxmi Kanta Chawla, who hails from Amritsar, did not hold back. “Showing the black history of Punjab selectively is not good for Punjab and Punjabis. Bittu should refrain from posting such videos. If he is keen to show the reality to future generations, he should quote from ‘The Kashmir Files’ and ‘The Kerala Story’ and get a project done on Punjab Files. If he is genuinely concerned about peace, he should get the screenings of ‘Satluj’, which are reportedly being held across the state, stopped.”

Chandigarh Congress MP Manish Tewari said, “Punjab went through a very traumatic phase between 1980 and 1995 when it became the first frontier in Pakistan’s strategy to bleed India with a thousand cuts. The only thing that saved Punjab was the bond between Hindus and Sikhs — the composite culture of Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat. There is nothing to be achieved by continuously scratching the barely healed wounds of that decade and a half. Anything that weakens Punjab’s composite identity only plays into the hands of the ISI. Politicians across party lines must realise the sensitivity of living cheek by jowl with Pakistan.” 

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Kalia pointed out that “terrorism in Punjab is a very complex subject. I feel there is no need to make movies like ‘Satluj’ or pass comments on the issue because they cannot do justice to a correct portrayal of those days. Depending on which side you defend, the story will never be complete.” 

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