During the Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984, Jogi (Diljit Dosanjh) and his friends attempt to save the lives of the Sikhs in their Delhi neighborhood after political influence to take as many lives as possible.

Cast: Diljit Dosanjh, Apinderdeep Singh, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub

Director: Ali Abbas Zafar

TRIGGER WARNING: Blood and Gore.

Netflix Original “Jogi” directed by Ali Abbas Zafar is a movie that tells the story of the Anti-Sikh Riots in 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards. For context, the assassination occurred after the order of Operation Blue Star to secure the Harmandir Sahib Sikh temple complex in Amritsar, Punjab. The riots that place afterwards took the lives of anywhere between 8000-17000 Sikhs.

The movie depicts the political collusion that took place as well as the aftermath it had on the Sikh community. In the film, following the assassination, the police release convicts that were locked up and provide them with weaponry to kill as many Sikhs as possible. For every life taken is a cash reward they will receive. At the same time, the police are given a voters list of names of people that should be killed and Jogi is on that list.

Jogi is the leader of his lane in Delhi and just heard about the death of his brother in law who was burned alive in his shop. After retreating the community to a nearby temple to hide, he hears the news that he is being specifically target. Instead of running, Jogi and his friend who is a policeman devise a plan to save the community by smuggling the Delhi Sikhs to a nearby Sikh city. Doing so, Jogi has to revoke his identity as a Sikh, cut his hair, and drive a truck filled with riot weaponry with his community members hidden in a compartment.

This movie tells a story that I was unfamiliar with and I feel that watching this movie gave me an introduction to what happened in June of 1984. However, I do not feel that this film was put together well enough to tell the story.

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First off, let me get my technical comments out of the way. The production was very choppy with inconsistent lighting, and there were a couple times the voices were not synched up. On top of that, the voice overs in a few scenes were done very poorly. There was not much setup for any of these characters either and not much context on any of them. It was often hard to remember any of their names besides the titular character Jogi. The film also began with 10 straight minutes of massacre such as people being burned alive and kids and elderly being killed which was very hard to watch so I must say, TRIGGER WARNING ADVISED.

However, we cannot take away from the actors their due. Diljit Dosangh has established himself as a bankable actor internationally. Mohammad Zeeshan Ayuub excels in his parts, as usual. Who really stood out throughout is Hiten Tejwani – more of him please.

The story weans itself off the tragedy into a song routine and a love angle which makes light of the 1984 tragedy even if it is woven in as a background to explaining the animosity between friends.

This movie provided very minimal context on Project Blue Star. In fact, I had to look it up myself in order to find out why this was so significant to the Sikh community. I feel that this would have been important context. Rather, the movie set up a very one dimensional villain who was a political member for the audience to recognize as the antagonist. At the same time, there was a long term alienization of the Sikh community due to the failure to actually penalize the political members who sought out to commit genocide against the Sikh community and I do not feel that this movie even began to address that.

All in all, this movie was hard to watch. It is an ok story but failed to do this any differently than how Indians and Indian Americans were brought up to believe of this story.