Manthan

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Manthan (disambiguation).

Manthan
Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.
Release date
Running time
134 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageHindi

Manthan, also released under the translated title The Churning, is a 1976

crowdfunded by 500,000 farmers who donated Rs. 2 each.[2][3][4] Manthan is the first crowdfunded Indian film.[5]

The film won the 1977

India's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for 1976.[6] A restored version is set to release in the Cannes Classics section of 2024 Cannes Film Festival.[7]

The title song ("Mero Gaam Katha Parey") was sung by

Best Female Playback Singer for that year.[8] The song was later used as the soundtrack for the television commercial for Amul.[9]


Plot

The film traces the origins of the movement through its fictionalised narrative, based around rural empowerment, when a young veterinary surgeon, played by

Tribhovandas Patel, which led to the setting up of a local milk cooperative, in Anand, Gujarat
.

Dr. Rao (Girish Karnad), a young veterinary doctor with his team of Deshmukh (Mohan Agashe), Chandravarkar (Anant Nag) and others comes to a village in Kheda district, Gujarat. The village is inhabited by poor people whose chief occupation seems to be cattle-rearing and producing milk, which they sell to a local dairy owner Mishra (Amrish Puri). Mishra pays them ridiculously low amounts for their milk. Dr. Rao and his team have arrived with the purpose of setting up a co-operative society dairy which will be owned collectively and managed by the villagers themselves. As Dr. Rao and his team grapple with village politics, rigid casteism and general distrust of the village folk, they face planned hostility from the local Harijan community's leader Bhola (Naseeruddin Shah) who harbours deep anger and resentment against the higher caste Panchayat Head (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Local village women are led by a feisty young woman Bindu (Smita Patil), mother of a young child whose husband has supposedly left her.

Dr. Rao wins the trust of Bindu and other villagers by testing their milk and paying them fair amounts for their high fat-content milk and this irks Mishra. Deshmukh is worried by the caste politics and divide between the higher castes and Harijans in the village and repeatedly warns Rao against getting involved in it. Chandravarkar gets attracted to a local Harijan girl and has a rendezvous with her in secret. The Harijans don't want to join the co-operative as they feel that the higher caste Panch and his cronies will usurp the society as well. Rao and his associates talk sense into them and organise an election for the post of the head of the co-operative. Bhola begins to trust and believe in Rao's ideals when Rao fires Chandravarkar for cheating the Harijan girl on pretext of marrying her and bails Bhola out of jail when Panch gets him arrested for rowdy behaviour.

Meanwhile, a mutual admiration and liking develops between Rao and Bindu, which is cut short when Bindu's husband returns home suddenly and Rao's wife comes to visit him in the village. In the election, the Harijan representative bhola defeats the Panch in a tiebreaker and the Harijans erupt in joy. The Panch takes the loss terribly on his ego and joins Mishra Ji, also aided by Bindu's husband. Together, they force Bindu to put her thumb impression on legal papers that claim Dr. Rao has raped her. Dr. Rao is extremely agitated when the allegations are brought against him and starts to wonder if he has bitten off more than he can chew. His wife also falls sick with Typhoid. Dr. Rao finishes the setting up of the board and leaves with his wife. This greatly troubles Bhola as he considers this cowardice on Dr. Rao's part. Bhola, however, continues to carry on the work of the co-operative with support from a few villagers and notably, Bindu. Both of them have been inspired and churned as new, brave individuals by the work of Dr. Rao.

Cast

Development and production

The word manthan literally means "churning", and other meanings may be deep contemplation, churning of facts, analysis aimed at a solution or conclusion. The film traces a small set of poor farmers of

Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union. Soon the pattern was repeated in each district of Gujarat, which in turn led to the formation of Amul, a dairy cooperative in Anand, Gujarat in 1946, which is today, jointly owned by some 2.6 million milk producers in Gujarat, India.[11]

Eventually, this led to the initiation of

Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF) in 1973, whose 500,000 members jointly financed the film, by donating Rs. 2 each.[2][3] Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, thus making it a box office success.[2][12]

Soundtrack

All music is composed by Vanraj Bhatia

No.TitlePlaybackLength
1."Mero Gaam Katha Parey"Preeti Sagar 

Awards and nominations

Year Nominee / work Award Result
1976 Amul National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi Won
Vijay Tendulkar National Film Award for Best Screenplay Won
1978 Preeti Sagar (for song Mero Gaam Katha Parey) Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer Won

Further reading

  • Shyam Benegal's the Churning (Manthan): Screenplay, by, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Samik Banerjee. Seagull Books, 1984.
    ISBN 0-86132-070-0
    .

References

  1. ^ "How a farmers' servant painted the nation white" (PDF). UNDP quoting Hindustan Times. 9 September 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
  2. ^ a b c "What makes Shyam special..." The Hindu. Chennai. 17 January 2003. Archived from the original on 12 January 2011. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
  3. ^ a b "Shyam Benegal". ucla.net. University of California, Los Angeles. 5 August 2012. Archived from the original on 5 August 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  4. ^ "Milkmen turned producers". The Hindu. 5 July 2014. Archived from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 26 July 2016.
  5. ^ "Did you know Shyam Benegal's Manthan was India's first crowdfunded film?". Mid-Day. 1 June 2019. Archived from the original on 16 June 2019. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  6. ^ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  7. ^ "Restored version of Shyam Benegal's Manthan to be screened at Cannes". The Indian Express. New Delhi. 27 April 2024. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  8. ^ Us Salam, Ziya (12 September 2012). "Manthan (1976)". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 26 February 2018. Retrieved 21 July 2017.
  9. ^ Kaur, Chehneet (7 January 2023). "When Amul made 'Manthan' reach every home - ET BrandEquity". ETBrandEquity.com. The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 6 June 2023. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  10. ^ Manthan Review Archived 9 February 2005 at the Wayback Machine Channel 4.
  11. ^ "The Amul Story – General Management Review". Archived from the original on 4 December 2005.
  12. ^ "Phalke Award for Benegal". NDTV Movies. New Delhi. 8 August 2007. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 27 April 2024.

External links

Awards
Preceded by National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi
1977 		Succeeded by
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