Amritsar, Punjab (March 18, 2013): The team of much awaited Punjabi movie “Sadda Haq” held a special screening at a Hotel in Amritsar on March 17, 2013. Selected personalities and media representatives were invited to view the movie in it’s full length, that is scheduled for worldwide release on April 05, 2013.
The movie is based on the events of 1980s-90s in Punjab, the period of armed Sikh struggle.
Kuljinder Sidhu has played the lead role in the movie as ‘Kartar’, who was a fine player of hockey. One day Kartar was on his way back home when he accidentally met a known who had joined the militant movement. Kartar dropped that person at some place on his way. This incident brought a storm in his life. When he reached home the police was after him. Kartar fled and was not able to return home throughout his life.
Many important and specific episodes of the period are screened in the movie – including Human Rights activist S. Jaswant Singh Khalra’s murder, police torture and fake encounters, the jail break, assassination of a politician responsible for unleashing region of terror on the people of Punjab. The movie ends with a call to build mass-movement for securing rights of the people though peaceful means.
After the screening of the movie the actor-cum-producer of the movie, Kuljinder Sidhu, told the attendees that this movie was his dream project.
The new generation is not aware of the truth of the period. The media did not present the true picture and portrayed the movement in the way the state wanted it to be portrayed, he said.
He said that it was a tough task to make the movie on this subject because no one was ready to take up the script that he had first written in 2004.
‘But this was my passion and we decided to make it ourselves’, he added.
Talking about the ban that was imposed by India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on the movie, he said ‘it was a set-back but we were able to get the film cleared from the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT)’.
On being asked by a journalist that this film could misguide the youth of Punjab and they could adopt the wrong paths again, Kuljinder Sidhu replied that he did not believe that the people of Punjab were misguided in any way during 1980s-90s or they adopted the wrong path.
‘It was a struggle for securing the rights of the people of Punjab and the arms were adopted as a last resort’ he said while adding that ‘We have given a message in the movie that now the time has changed and the struggle to secure the rights would take the form of a mass movement using modern means such as internet and media’.
Speaking on the occasion Bhai Ranjit Singh Kukki Gill said that he has a specific reason to support the movie Sadda Haq. He said that they did not join the movement out of fear of police or torture. “After 1984 we had the image of damaged Darbar Sahib before our eyes that’s why we left our families”, he said.
“Our violence was neither offensive nor misguided. We took resort to the gun out of existential concerns – to save our values” he said while explaining the reasons that why the youth took up arms after 1984 .
‘We lost the battle of post-1984 because we lacked the capabilities of dialogue’ and ‘it was a failure of the leadership’, he added.
Violence can’t be a solution to the problems but we must say that our pride and dignity must be secured where ever we live, he added.
Bibi Kiranjot Kaur, Bibi Parmjeet Kaur Khalra, Bibi Sandeep Kaur, Advocate Bhagwant Singh Sialka, Bhai Mohkam Singh, Bhai Kanwarpal Singh (Dal Khalsa) and S. Parmjeet Singh Gazi appreciated the efforts of Sadda Haq team for bringing post 1984 Punjab on screen.
Sikh Scholar S. Ajmer Singh and family members of Bhai Lakhwinder Singh Lakha and Bhai Shamsher Singh Kanwarpur, who are undergoing sentence in CM Beant Singh assassination case were also present on the occasion.