Manthan

Doctor Rao, a veterinarian, goes to a village to set up a dairy cooperative for the betterment of the people in the countryside. But an order is already in place there: middlemen, ties of debt and divisions of caste decide in advance who will earn how much. Because the idea of a cooperative shakes that order, what he comes up against is not only the traders but the village’s own hierarchy. The film is set against the background of the great milk programme that began in 1970. The money for the production was raised entirely from five hundred thousand farmers, each giving two rupees. Girish Karnad and Smita Patil appear in Shyam Benegal’s hundred and thirty four minute Indian film, completed in 1976.