An excerpt from the booklet essay by Omar Ahmed.

Manthan, released in 1976, was the final part in Benegal’s 'Uprising' trilogy of films. All three films, including Ankur (1973) and Nishant (1975), are set in the rural heartlands of India, and explore the politics of feudalism and caste. Whereas Ankur looks more specifically at caste exploitation through the destructive relationship of a landowner’s son and the lower caste servants, Nishant deals with the horrors of feudalistic sexual oppression perpetrated against women. Manthan also deals with feudalism but through a completely alternate lens of political mobilisation, caste resistance and revolution.

Founded in Gujarat in 1946, the Amul milk co-operative became a powerful symbol of rural empowerment through collective action and catalysed India's White Revolution, which ultimately transformed the country into the world's largest milk producer. Benegal's Manthan dramatically portrays this transformative social movement. The film itself made history as arguably the world's first crowdfunded production, financed by half a million Amul dairy farmers who each contributed two rupees toward its creation. Working from a script developed in collaboration with Verghese Kurien, the architect of India's White Revolution, Benegal crafts a narrative structure that mirrors the co-operative movement it depicts. Rather than allowing any single character to dominate, the film builds its dramatic momentum through the accumulation of individual stories that gradually coalesce into a compelling portrait of social transformation.

Manthan is the story of an idealistic veterinarian, Dr Rao (Girish Karnad) who arrives in a village hoping to establish a milk co-operative. However, Dr Rao encounters a complex web of societal and historical forces entrenched over centuries, defined by rigid caste divisions that he initially fails to fully comprehend. In creating the milk co-operative, Dr Rao aspires not only to improve economic conditions but also to challenge caste prejudices expressly the upper-caste privilege embodied by Mishraji (Amrish Puri), the despotic dairy owner. Mishraji dominates the village, systematically exploiting and controlling the dairy farmers through his position of power. With a brilliantly structured screenplay by the accomplished playwright Vijay Tendulkar and powerful dialogue by Kaifi Azmi, Benegal conjures a fiercely political work in which the Dalit farmers; Bhola (Naseeruddin Shah) and Bindu (Smita Patil) emerge as symbols of lower caste Dalit solidarity and resistance.

Benegal opens Manthan with the most innocuous of moments: a train arriving at a rural station. Yet this simple image is accompanied by the lilting song ‘Mero Gaam Katha Parey’ (‘My Village on the Riverbank’), sung by Preeti Sagar. Playful and celebratory, the song paints an idyllic picture of village life, while the train and the arrival of the outsider, Dr Rao, signal the promise of a modern age for the farmers. Later, however, the song reappears as a leitmotif, sung in a plaintive, mournful tone that underscores the unfulfilled romance between Dr Rao and Bindu. In this new register, it evokes not optimism but the weight of caste boundaries and the impossibility of transcending them. What began as a symbol of change gradually transforms into something more melancholic and romantic. This subtle shift exemplifies one of Benegal’s many sleights of hand, layering emotional and cultural complexity beneath the surface of what might otherwise seem a straightforward political narrative.

Omar Ahmed’s complete essay, from which this excerpt is taken, appears in the booklet which accompanies the release.