Sardaar Ji 3 row: ‘No plans yet to remove Diljit Dosanjh from Border 2'
Diljit Dosanjh continues to find himself in hot water for going ahead with his film Sardaar Ji 3's release overseas, which features Pakistani actor Hania Amir. The move had sparked backlash online with film bodies demanding a ban on Diljit. Now, there's been growing demand for Diljit to be removed from the upcoming war drama Border 2. Diljit Dosanjh
However, we have learnt from highly placed sources on the film that, as of now, there is no such development. The source says, 'There is no plan to replace or remove Diljit from Border 2. The announcement about his casting was made almost nine months back, before any of the unfortunate situations had happened. Almost 40-50 percent of the film's shooting has already been done, so making any change at this point is not possible.'
On June 25, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees had written letters addressed to Bhushan Kumar (co-producer of Border 2) and actor Sunny Deol, asking them to disassociate from their collaboration with Diljit. However, both of them are yet to reply to the letters. When we reached out to the makers of Border 2 — Nidhi Dutta and Bhushan — our efforts weren't met with a response at the time of going to press.
Meanwhile, on Friday, FWICE wrote a letter urging Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah to withdraw the permission granted for the shooting of the film Border 2 at the National Defence Academy (NDA).
Sources claim that the film's team may issue a statement soon.
Also read: Neeru Bajwa unfollows Hania Aamir, deletes Sardaar Ji 3 trailer from her Instagram page amid backlash to Diljit Dosanjh Neeru Bajwa deletes Sardaar ji 3 posts from Instagram
On Thursday, a day ahead of Sardaarji 3's release overseas, the film female lead and Diljit's co-star in film, Neeru Bajwa, deleted all the promotional assets of the film from her Instagram feed including the trailer and songs. While Neeru has not issued a formal statement, her actions have fuelled speculation about her stance on the matter. Guru Randhawa deactivates X account after cryptic post on Diljit
While artistes like Mika Singh have openly objected to Hania's casting and the decision to release Sardaar Ji 3 overseas, Guru Randhawa too took to X on Thursday to drop a cryptic post that many interpreted as a veiled dig at fellow artist Diljit amid the Sardaar Ji 3 row. "'Lakh pardesi hoyieee, Apna desh nhi bhandi daa. Jehre mulk da khayie, us da bura nhi mangi da,' read a part of Guru's post.
However, in a surprise move on Friday, the singer deactivated his account on X.
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Prada Acknowledges Being Inspired By Indian Kolhapuri Chappals Featured In 2026 Collection
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The continuing stranglehold of Indian film censorship
Uday Bhatia The experiences of four films this year—'Punjab '95', 'Santosh', 'L2: Empuraan' and 'Phule'—form a rough map of the terrain to be negotiated in getting a film to its audience Diljit Dosanjh and (right) Honey Trehan on the set of 'Punjab '95'. Photo by Parnil Vishwasrao Gift this article In early 2023, Honey Trehan was confident his film would be released. Punjab '95 had a big star, Diljit Dosanjh, a veteran producer in Ronnie Screwvala, and was already being talked about at home and abroad. The film's subject, Jaswant Singh Khalra, had been controversial in his time for exposing extrajudicial killings in Punjab, but that was over 30 years ago. Still, talks with the censors weren't progressing as smoothly as Trehan had hoped. A particular sticking point was the specific number of 25,000 unclaimed bodies mentioned in the film by Khalra. Trehan recalled an exchange with the censor board where the number of bodies was negotiated downwards. 'It felt surreal," he told me. 'It's like you're saying 5,000-6,000 dead is acceptable, but 25,000 is a crime." In early 2023, Honey Trehan was confident his film would be released. Punjab '95 had a big star, Diljit Dosanjh, a veteran producer in Ronnie Screwvala, and was already being talked about at home and abroad. The film's subject, Jaswant Singh Khalra, had been controversial in his time for exposing extrajudicial killings in Punjab, but that was over 30 years ago. Still, talks with the censors weren't progressing as smoothly as Trehan had hoped. A particular sticking point was the specific number of 25,000 unclaimed bodies mentioned in the film by Khalra. Trehan recalled an exchange with the censor board where the number of bodies was negotiated downwards. 'It felt surreal," he told me. 'It's like you're saying 5,000-6,000 dead is acceptable, but 25,000 is a crime." As casting and second unit director on Udta Punjab (2016), Trehan had seen what could happen when the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) decided a film was trouble. The board had suggested close to 90 cuts for that film, which was reduced to one cut after the makers went to the Bombay high court. But Udta Punjab was a provocative, foul-mouthed, drug-filled film. Punjab '95 was a sober human rights story. It would likely be passed with a few cuts and an 'A" certificate, he thought. Yet, two years later, Punjab '95 remains unreleased. Any film, Indian or foreign, seeking theatrical exhibition in the country must have a CBFC certificate. To get this certificate, filmmakers must contend with a number of issues that the board might flag as sensitive and are required to be removed for certification. These could range from religious, political or caste references to particular scenes and words. The CBFC website lists about two dozen 'principles" by which it is 'guided" for 'sanctioning films of public exhibition". It explains that the idea of certification is to ensure that 'the medium of film remains responsible and sensitive to the values and standards of society". Lounge reached out to the chairperson and CEO of the CBFC via email and message multiple times for this story, but received no response. We also reached out to former chairpersons, but none were willing to speak to us. The Cinematograph Act 1952 and the Cinematograph Rules 1983 contain the tenets on which the CBFC judges films. Yet, because of the broadness of their language, what is passable and what isn't depends on the interpretation of two committees. First is the Examining Committee (EC), whose members are drawn from a large pool and come from all walks of life. Then, if required, there's a Revising Committee (RC), which includes a CBFC board member. Rajeev Masand, a film critic and current COO of Dharma Cornerstone Agency, a talent management agency, was one such CBFC member in the mid-2010s. 'The board members actually have the least power," he says. 'Decisions are taken at the EC level." He tells Lounge that the EC members he encountered were 'rarely cine-literate". 'Their thinking was on the lines of, people won't like this, how will they watch it with the family," he says. 'You have people with their own fixed ideas," says National Award-winning director Hansal Mehta (Shahid, Aligarh) about the committees. 'This moral compass is applied to the viewing and interpreted through outdated guidelines." With the abolishing in 2021 of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT)—a vital board of appeal if a filmmaker disagreed with the EC and RC's decisions—the only option now for makers unhappy with suggested cuts is to go to court. Unsurprisingly, few take this step. Streaming too has been tamed, after a few years of freedom. After protests in 2019 around the series Tandav (Amazon Prime) and Leila (Netflix), platforms have backed away from material that could get them into trouble. The Indian films available on streaming are ones that have already been through the censor process or are self-censored so as not to ruffle feathers. In the first half of 2025, four films—Punjab '95, Santosh, L2: Empuraan and Phule—have been tangled up with the censors or other forces that have complicated their release. Taken together, their experiences form a rough map of the rocky terrain to be negotiated in getting a film to its audience. TALE OF DISAPPEARANCES Jaswant Singh Khalra shone a light on Punjab's darkest years of militancy and counterterrorism in the 1980s and 1990s. While working as a bank employee in Amritsar, Khalra began to look for acquaintances who'd gone missing. He went beyond official records, combing the books of hospitals, morgues and cremation grounds for discrepancies. Amandeep Sandhu writes of him in the 2019 book Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines: 'Eventually, his search led him to the municipal corporation which had provided the firewood for the mass cremations..." Honey Trehan grew up in Tarn Taran in the 1980s. This district was a hotbed of separatist activity in the 1980s, and the site of brutal crackdowns by the police. Khalra was born here too. It's also where he was abducted and disappeared, for which four policemen were later convicted. Trehan remembers Khalra as a constant fixture in the papers then. Decades later, looking for a subject for his second feature, the casting director-turned-filmmaker remembered the man they called laawaris laashan da waaris, keeper of unclaimed bodies. Honey Trehan directing Diljit Dosanjh on the set of 'Punjab '95'. Photo by Parnil Vishwasrao In early April, I attended a private screening of Punjab '95 in Delhi. It was the first time anyone outside of Trehan's circle was seeing the film, which had been held up at the censors for over two years. The screening was a gesture of both resignation and defiance; Trehan had lost hope that the film would ever release, and just wanted to get the word out. I expected Punjab '95 to be harrowing—and it was. But Trehan also finds ways to show Khalra's resourcefulness and courage without making him seem saintly or larger than life. The film is built around a quietly determined turn by Diljit Dosanjh as Khalra, with fine support from Arjun Rampal as a dogged CBI officer, a terrifying Suvinder Vicky as the cop sent to silence Khalra, and Saurabh Sachdeva as another cop with a troubled conscience. I asked Trehan if he thought the film was controversial when he was making it. 'Even today I don't think so," he said. Production house RSVP had lawyers vet the screenplay, as studios often do now. 'Legal teams have become co-writers on our scripts," Hansal Mehta told me, half-jokingly, in another conversation. The makers cleared the rights with Khalra's family. They shot in many of the actual locations where the events took place. They even had the go-ahead of the Akal Takht, the highest leadership group of the Sikh community. The screenplay, Trehan said, is almost entirely 'based on testimonies, arguments and judgements given in the CBI special court, sessions court, Punjab & Haryana high court and Supreme Court." Trehan submitted the film to the CBFC in December 2022. A couple of months went by. Then came the first communication, 21 suggested cuts. 'They said, change Jaswant Singh Khalra's name, say it's not a true story, remove Punjab from 'Punjab police,'" Trehan told me. With no headway being made and no FCAT to appeal to, the makers moved the Bombay high court. In July 2023, it was announced that Punjab '95 would premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Around this time, Trehan says, producer Ronnie Screwvala went to Delhi for a meeting, and on his return told Trehan he couldn't push further. (Lounge reached out to Screwvala for this story but did not receive a response.) The film was withdrawn from TIFF and the case from the high court. Nonetheless, negotiations with the CBFC continued. 'I thought, never mind, it's important that people see this story," Trehan said. 'I made the 21 cuts." The Revising Committee saw it again; now they asked for a total of 37 cuts. The makers again complied ('I have so many versions of the film," Trehan said wryly). But the number kept rising, until it was more than 120 cuts—suggestions to remove gurbaani, remove the Indian flag. An international release—which wouldn't require a CBFC certificate—was planned for February 2025. Dosanjh shared a trailer on his Instagram page, the only glimpse of the film the public has seen. Then came another summons from Delhi, Trehan says. The release abroad was scrapped. Dosanjh shared another Instagram story, citing 'circumstances beyond our control". Trehan has since moved on to other projects. 'Freedom of speech has become an illusion in this country," he told me. He is currently showing a director's cut of the film to small groups, so people can see it isn't offensive. 'I'm not interested in making a government film. The film with 120 cuts is directed by the government and edited by CBFC." STUMBLING BLOCK Compared to Punjab '95, Santosh had something of a charmed run. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes last year, won Best Actress and Best New Director at the Asian Film Awards, released in several countries, and was selected as UK's official entry to the Oscars. A small theatrical run in India seemed likely. Yet, the film, by British-Indian director Sandhya Suri, remains unseen in India outside of a few festival screenings, because it never got a CBFC certificate. The film is set in a Hindi-speaking state with the fictional name of Chirag Pradesh—common practice now, and a clue that the makers weren't oblivious of what it takes to secure an India release. When her police constable husband dies, Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) is offered the same job. Santosh isn't above taking small cutbacks but is appalled at the sexism and casteism of the police force. She finds a role model in tough inspector Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), who includes her in the investigation involving the rape and murder of a Dalit girl, the main suspect for which is a Muslim boy. Suri's film starts out bleak and gets progressively bleaker as Santosh realises her superior's hard-nosed survival instincts trump any notions of moral duty. Unlike Soni, Ivan Ayr's 2018 film about two female cops in Delhi, Santosh doesn't allow for a silver lining of unconditional female solidarity. The crusading cop is a fixture across Indian language cinema, but Suri shows how untenable a concept that is in real life. Far from mounting rebellion, Santosh can just about stay afloat. Sunita Rajwar and (right) Shahana Goswami in 'Santosh' Goswami says the film didn't have an Indian distributor until Santosh made the International Film Oscar longlist in December 2024, after which PVR came on board. A release date was set for 10 January 2025, two weeks before the Oscar nominations would be announced. The film was submitted to the CBFC in December; they gave their recommendations beginning February, says Goswami. 'Perhaps I was being optimistic, but I felt that the film does not make any one aspect of the system problematic. It holds everyone culpable. I didn't think it would offend anyone." The censors didn't agree. Suri told The Guardian she was given a list of cuts that went on for several pages. 'It was very important to me that the film is released in India so I did try to figure out if there was a way to make it work. But in the end, it was too difficult to make those cuts and have a film that still made sense." Suri also told them she 'didn't feel these issues were particularly new to Indian cinema or hadn't been raised before by other films". We reached out to Suri as well, but did not receive a response. Sketchy cops are a common fixture in Indian films; last year's Pushpa 2: The Rule, the highest-grossing film ever in India, had a long comic scene involving the bribing of an entire police station. But caste is a genuine stumbling block, and Santosh's plain speaking was likely to run into trouble for a general release (it was awarded the more lenient film festival waiver). The film's moral murkiness might have been an additional barrier. 'There are these loopholes when it comes to Indian viewing," Goswami says. 'You can have all the cynicism you want, but as long as you have one person trying to make it right, it gives you that moral compass. Not having that redeemable element, I think it became a problem." There is another wrinkle. Suri was born, raised and lives in England. One of Santosh's producers (Suitable Pictures) is Indian, but the other producers and co-producers (Good Chaos, Razor Film, Haut et Court) and financiers are European. The film is a partly foreign production, by a British-Indian director, critical of Indian institutions and mores, and sent by another country to the Oscars. Around the same time that Santosh was being deliberated on by the CBFC, the Film Federation of India jury was to deem All We Imagine as Light, which most people assumed would be our entry to the Oscars, as 'a European film taking place in India". Implicit in that dismissal was the memory of Payal Kapadia's previous film, A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021), about the anti-caste and anti-government protests that swept campuses in 2015-16 (it remains unreleased in India). CUTS AND RE-CUTS A fleet of cars pulls up at a political rally. The grill of one vehicle, seen in closeup, bears a badge: 'National Investigative Agency, Government of India". The crowd murmurs worriedly. But the speaker everyone has been listening to, Indian Union Front head Priyadarshini Ramdas (Manju Warrier), is calm. She'd guessed before the rally that 'central agencies" would issue an arrest warrant in her name for money laundering. She leaves the rally triumphant in shackles, a political martyr. This is a key scene in L2: Empuraan, a politically minded Malayalam action blockbuster. Prithviraj Sukumaran's film released on 27 March, a Thursday. By the weekend, word had spread that a pivotal section of the film, a sequel to the 2019 hit Lucifer, depicted the 2002 Gujarat riots. Protests from some groups followed. On 4 April, the Enforcement Directorate raided offices of one the film's producers, Gokulam Gopalan, over alleged Foreign Exchange Management Act violations. The following day, director Sukumaran was sent a notice by the IT department. A re-certified, re-cut version of the film replaced the original in theatres on 2 April. The reference to Central agencies was no longer there. Various scenes, small and large, including ones that depicted the violence of the riots, were missing—making the film over two minutes shorter. I had watched Empuraan on opening day. Comparing the riots sequence with the re-censored version that replaced it (now streaming on JioHotstar), there are a number of differences. The name of the antagonist has been changed, intertitles have been swapped out, and the harrowing scene showing families sheltering in a haveli attacked by a mob after a train is ambushed has several small but significant cuts. Films are required to be recertified if any changes are made after they begin playing in theatres. But such changes are usually from the side of the makers—a song removed, an ending tweaked. A barrage of post-release cuts from the censors is unprecedented. Mohanlal and (right) Prithviraj in 'L2: Empuraan' In an interview to Hindi news portal The Lallantop, actor Prakash Raj spoke about Empuraan and 'Central censorship". 'Their whole idea is to create so much pressure that the next generation of writers themselves decide not to make waves. They don't want this discourse, it's very clear." Lounge reached out to Lyca Productions, one of the film's producers, but did not receive a response. Madhuja Mukherjee, professor of film studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, as well as an author, screenwriter and director, says there's a lacuna where political cinema used to be. 'Filmmakers from the beginning are self-censoring or using coded gestures." She gives examples of Satyajit Ray's Ganashatru (1989), in which the waters of a temple are found to be contaminated, and Shahenshah (1988), an Amitabh Bachchan film that ends with him hanging a criminal in court. 'There is a long history of popular cinema being critical of the functioning of the state," she says. 'Now, there seems to an understanding between producers and filmmakers that you can put in anything—sex, violence—but not politics. Films that are politically aware or critical of the government will not be made." Mehta says something similar: 'The political drama as we used to know it doesn't exist now, unless it's a patriotic drama." EDICTS AND COMPROMISES Finally, we have a film that was released, but is still a cautionary tale. Ananth Mahadevan's Phule is an earnest depiction of Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, who campaigned for anti-caste reform and education for girls in 19th century Maharashtra. It's the mildest bold film imaginable, not shying away from the hardship and discrimination faced by the couple but soft-peddling everything with its polite tone and PG violence. Along with religion, politics and nudity, caste is usually censored in Indian cinema. Films addressing it are in a Catch-22 bind: they have to name specific castes and slurs to make their point, but the CBFC immediately tags these as sensitive. Mahadevan says he was told, 'Don't call them mang, mahar, call them pichhdi hui jaatiyan (backward castes)." Hindi film-makers arguably find it harder to address caste in their films than their counterparts in other language cinemas—compare Phule to the stark reality shown in Sairat (Marathi), Karnan and Pariyerum Perumal (both Tamil). Director Anurag Kashyap alluded to this in a recent Instagram post, mentioning Phule, Santosh and Shazia Iqbal's unreleased Dhadak 2 as films about caste stuck at the censors. Phule was meant to release on 11 April, Jyotirao's birth anniversary. But on 8 April, Mid-Day reported that Maharashtrian Brahmin groups had written to Mahadevan upset about their depiction in the trailer. The makers offered to push the release by two weeks and 'clear their doubts". 'When Phule opened the Satyashodhak Samaj, these Brahmins were the pillars," Mahadevan told Mid-Day. 'I'm a staunch Brahmin. Why will I (malign) my community?" This kind of grievance-airing, often spilling over into protest, has become common before the release of films, especially ones dealing with history. Some, like Padmaavat (2018), get derailed; others like Phule (or this year's big hit Chhaava, with its deleted lezim folk dance), find the right compromise. If you watch Phule, you get a sense of what might have been left out. In the trailer (on YouTube), Jyotirao (Pratik Gandhi) says that while the British have ruled for a century, 'the slavery I want to liberate people from is 3,000 years old". This is replaced in the film with '…is even older than that". Specific caste names aren't mentioned. Mahadevan told me the changes had 'no great impact" on his film, though he did admit that they left 'scars". 'The CBFC wanted the film to get a U certificate," he says. 'They're all treading thin ice, living in fear that there'll be some backlash from somewhere." Phule's release is a victory for its makers, but also a clear indication of the line to be toed. Even when a film passes largely unscathed, the demands from the CBFC are often telling. The Hindustan Times reported on 19 June that the board had suggested modifications to the Aamir Khan-starrer Sitaare Zameen Par before certification, one of which was the addition of a quote by the Prime Minister. The suggestions were all included; the quote, concerning 'divyang log" (differently abled persons), appears before the opening credits. Another recent case concerns the upcoming Malayalam film Janaki vs State of Kerala, starring Union minister Suresh Gopi and Anupama Parameswaran. A PTI report on 22 June cited sources who claimed the film was denied certification by the CBFC on account of its titular character's name, which is also used for the goddess Sita. The report quotes B. Unnikrishnan, a director and general secretary of the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), confirming that the board had told the makers they couldn't use the name 'Janaki". These are just some films among the hundreds that will come under the CBFC's microscope this year. Multiple committees over the years have looked into censor reform, but visible change has been scant ('They keep saying, it's happening," Mehta says. 'Clearly it's not a priority"). Female-oriented cusses are muted while other, stronger language goes unscathed. CGI clothes are added to nude scenes, as happened in Oppenheimer (2023) and Nosferatu (2024). 'By now actors are very conscious of, say, smoking on screen, because there will be a big warning sign," says Mukherjee. 'Or an intimate scene—everyone knows how to shoot it: 'suggesting' without showing nudity. Self-censorship becomes the norm. I would say the political climate, rather than censorship rules, is the issue." The only thing that's allowed relatively free passage is violence, the bedrock of the new-age Indian blockbuster. This is fitting. After all, what censors do to the films we see is a kind of violence too./ Topics You May Be Interested In
