This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Hartosh Singh Bal, Executive Editor of The Caravan, and sports broadcaster Arjun Pandit.

The discussion begins with Hartosh’s critique of the film Satluj (previously known as Punjab 95), which he labels as propaganda carrying partial truths. Hartosh, who has reported on Punjab for years, is also the nephew of KPS Gill – the highly controversial officer who helmed the state police at the height of militancy. This was the very force that Jaswant Singh Khalra, the central figure of the film, was investigating, and whose actions ultimately led to Khalra’s killing in custody.

While Hartosh doesn’t dispute that Khalra was killed in police custody – calling it a settled fact – he challenges the film’s claim of 25,000 disappearances. Using crematoria data and police-action timelines, Hartosh puts the real figure closer to 7,000, remarking, “This film is propaganda to the service of a political cause and in that sense, it has a danger.”

Responding to Hartosh’s claim, Abhinandan disagrees that the distortion was intentional. Instead, he argues it’s simply a familiar Bollywood pattern of filmmakers falling for a great story without doing the underlying political homework, noting, “Punjab 95 or Satluj is a very well-made film, but it does not, in my view, give the entire story of who this gentleman was, Khalra.”

Shardool takes a different approach, arguing that no film about a real person is ever fully accurate, and that the state’s refusal to admit fault – not the film itself – is what keeps these conversations from ever reaching real reconciliation. Manisha adds that for most audiences, the exact numbers matter less than the deep, uncontested memory of police brutality the film taps into.

Switching gears, the panel is joined by Arjun Pandit to dissect the FIFA World Cup. A red card reversal for a star player of the American team, reportedly following a call from US President Donald Trump to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, sets the tone. Shardool isn’t surprised by these developments, arguing that FIFA’s corruption has never really been in question, but this World Cup has simply made it harder to look away from.

The conversation then drifts into VAR and how technology has changed the game, with heavier scrutiny somehow making referees more exposed rather than more trusted. This tension boils over around the Egypt-Argentina match, sparking accusations of a fix. However, Abhinandan, who watched the game closely, isn’t convinced it’s rigged. 

On a more sombre note, Manisha steers the conversation toward an Israeli airstrike that killed a man organising a football match for children in Gaza.

All this and more.