NEW DELHI—India’s government has blocked the release of a film about the Sikh assassins who killed the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, saying it could pose a threat to law and order.
Theaters across northern India and select cities elsewhere were set to start showing the Punjabi-language movie, “Kaum De Heere,” which translates as “Diamonds of the Community,” on Friday.
The film tracks the transformation of Mrs. Gandhi’s killers – anointed as martyrs last year by Sikh religious authorities — from dependable bodyguards to assassins.
Mrs. Gandhi’s death sparked large-scale anit-Sikh pogroms, one of the worst episodes of communal violence in Indian history. Around 7,000 people, mostly Sikhs are believed to have died in the pogroms.
Leela Samson, chairwoman of India’s Cenral Board of Film Certification, said the movie “rakes up very old and strong sentiments” and sends a “wrong message to the youth that a particular ideology comes above the nation’s interests and that taking the law into your hands is permissible.”
She said that after officials from the Home Ministry, Information and Broadcasting Ministry and film review board watched the film Thursday, film regulators decided to withdraw their earlier approval for it to be shown in theaters.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Thursday, the film’s producer, Satish Katyal, said the film was about the lives of the two assassins and the difficulties faced by their families.
“Nobody has been shown as being good or bad. There are no biases,” he said.
Mr. Katyal said it was unfair for the film board to reverse course just hours before the film’s release. If the government had any objections, he said, there was “ample opportunity to raise them before.”
The film opens with the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi, the daughter of independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Mrs. Gandhi, like her father, led the Congress party.
While she was premier, Indian security forces attacked alleged Sikh militants inside the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest site, in a raid dubbed Operation Blue Star. Hundreds of people were killed.
Soon after Mrs. Gandhi was killed by two Sikh bodyguards, touching off a spasm of religious violence. Senior Congress politicians have faced trials, some of which are ongoing, for inciting mobs and fueling the conflict.
“There will never be any justification for the attack on the sanctity of Sikhs and the targeting of an entire community,” said Avtar Singh, head of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, Sikhism’s highest authority.
The party has attempted to reconcile with the Sikh community. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, himself a Sikh, apologized for the riots when he came to power.
The film’s director Ravinder Ravi said he wanted to do a film about the “lesser known lives of the two men, we have always only seen as convicted criminals.”
Raj Kakra, an actor who portrayed one of the assassins, Beant Singh, prepared for the role by meeting the families of Mr. Singh and the other killer, Satwant Singh.
Each meeting was followed by a “deep realization of the layers of emotional turbulence that the families experienced- of witnessing a military raid into the Golden Temple, of losing their sons at the hands of law as well as a large number of people from their community” in the ensuing violence, Mr. Kakra said.
Mr. Kakra, who was a teenager when Operation Blue Star took place, said the events still resonate “because even 30 years later there are so many unanswered questions.”
In February, India’s film censor board asked the filmmakers to remove three 10-second parts of the film, Mr. Katyal said, before approving the release of the modified film in July.
Harinder Singh Phoolka, a senior Sikh lawyer who has represented relatives of many who were killed in 1984, said films about the horrible events of that year “are an outlet for the anguish haunting the people of the community.”
A Punjabi film titled “Sadda Haq” (or Our Right) based on the tumultuous events of 1984 hit screens in May last year. Another award-winning short film, “Kush,” set in 1984, narrated the true story of a teacher trying to protect a Sikh student in her class from the threat of violence around him.
In October, Bollywood actor Soha Ali Khan and comedian-turned-actor Vir Das, will feature in “Jaane Kyun: The Unanswered Question,” a film about the story of a Sikh family in New Delhi that survived the 1984 riots.
