How India's blocking of a film exposing real-life police abuses backfired

In the second week of July, hundreds in Bandala village in the Indian state of Punjab attended the screening of Satluj, a film blocked by the Indian government on grounds of 'national security'. Omkar Khandekar/NPR hide caption toggle caption Omkar Khandekar/NPR AMRITSAR, India — On a muggy monsoon evening, farmers in the northern Indian village of Bandala finished tending to their rice and sugarcane crop and flocked to the local Sikh temple. They settled in plastic chairs, women to the front, men to the back, as volunteers served strawberry juice in plastic cups and kids bustled around, happy to have an excuse to stay up late. They were gathered for an unlikely event: the screening of a film that was never granted a theatrical release certificate by Indian censors, and pulled from a streaming platform a day after its release online. The Indian government has not revealed their reasons for the blocking. India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting did not reply to NPR's interview requests. There was little sign of the film's contraband nature in the promotional posters plastered all over the village shopfronts and playground walls. They advertised the movie, titled "Satluj," as...