This photograph taken on November 3, 1984, shows then premier Rajiv Gandhi, accompanied by his wife Sonia and daughter Priyanka as they stand at the cremation site of his mother Indira Gandhi in New Delhi.
A controversial film on the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi was scheduled for release today amid calls for it to be banned for glorifying her killers.
Kaum De Heere” or Diamonds Of The Community tells the story of Gandhi’s Sikh bodyguards who shot the premier dead in 1984 apparently in revenge for a military operation that killed hundreds of Sikhs.
The youth wing of Gandhi’s Congress Party has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the film portrays the two bodyguards as heroes.
“I wrote to the prime minister to stop the release of the film,” said Vikramjit Chaudhary, president of the Punjab Pradesh Youth Congress, a local unit of Congress.
Chaudhary said the film sent the wrong signal to young disaffected Sikhs in northern Punjab state where the army’s Operation Blue Star was carried out in 1984.
“Seventy percent of our youth is hooked to drugs and (a) large number of them are unemployed,” Chaudhary said.
“The movie not only justifies the killing of the former PM, but is also an attempt to revive terrorism in Punjab,” Chaudhary said.
“We hope the (current) PM will intervene in the issue. Otherwise, we would not allow the film to be released in Punjab . . . the government shall be responsible for any law and order issue that may crop up.”
Chaudhary warned to reporters this week that protests could be staged across Punjab over the film’s release.
A Ministry of Information and Broadcasting official said yesterday it was mulling whether to still allow the film’s go ahead in India today as scheduled because of the controversy.
According to local media reports, Indian intelligence agencies have issued warnings of potential violence in the country’s north.
The Home Ministry said it could not immediately confirm the reports.
Acting on Gandhi’s orders in 1984, the army stormed the Sikh religion’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, searching for militants holed up inside who were fighting for a separate homeland for Sikhs.
A few months later in October, two of Gandhi’s bodyguards shot her dead, sparking a violent backlash against the Sikh community that left about 3,000 people dead, mostly on the streets of Delhi.
One of the bodyguards, Beant Singh, was killed by police shortly after Gandhi’s murder, while the other, Satwant Singh, was later hanged.
Director Ravinder Ravi has defended his film, whose characters speak in Punjabi, saying it had “no heroes or villains.”
“All that I am doing is telling a human story about two families that is neither political nor aimed at creating trouble,” Ravi told The Hindu newspaper on Monday.
“Allegations that we want to create a law and order problem by showing what happened 30 years ago are meaningless,” Ravi told the Times of India. “We are just reproducing what has been documented. What’s wrong in bringing historical incidents before the public after 30 years?”
The son of one of the killers, Sarabjit Singh Khalsa, has championed the film, saying: “The movie brings to fore the pain which Indira’s bodyguards felt during their visit to the Golden Temple after Operation Blue Star.”
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has said that he would ask the federal home secretary to look into the situation.
