In leading role again
Indian audiences returned to the fictional village of Phulera this April, with the third season of Panchayat streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. Centred around the simple and sometimes mundane lives of village inhabitants—seen through the eyes of Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar), the reluctant sachivji (panchayat secretary)—the series promised to be a lighthearted watch when it was first released in 2020. It was a hit among people stuck indoors due to the novel coronavirus pandemic lockdown, who took to social media to praise the actors, director and the production company The Viral Fever (TVF).
The latest season of Panchayat sustained this success, garnering as many as 28.3 million views in the first half of 2024, according to an assessment by media consulting firm Ormax Media. What may have kept the show popular even in the post-lockdown world may be its commitment to remain a rural story. Although its central character Tripathi is a city-bred youngster unwillingly thrust into a village, the show is not about his urban gaze into the rural settings. Rather, the focus stays on the people of Phulera, their everyday relationships, desires, problems and disappointments. Even the sets are not exaggerated with “ruralness”—with a bare, ochre-coloured panchayat office, simple houses surrounded by fields and vast space between dwellings, Phulera looks like any Indian village one might pass during a road trip across the heartland. “Almost all of TVF’s writers are from tier-II or -III cities. They want to tell the story of their surroundings and realities, not peddle to a fanciful urban dream,” Vijay Koshy, TVF president, tells Down To Earth (DTE). “This has helped strengthen the regional voice,” he adds.
A month before Panchayat’s third season arrived, audiences were taken to another fictional village, Surajmukhi, in Laapataa Ladies. This film is about two newly married women in “Nirmal Pradesh”, who unwittingly swap places while travelling to their husbands’ villages. As they find their way to their true destinations, they also in a way “find” themselves. After doing the rounds of film festivals in 2023, Laapataa Ladies received lukewarm response at the theatres and on Netflix in early 2024. It was, however, appreciated by critics and audiences, and is now India’s official entry to the Oscars.
The film is treated quite differently from Panchayat. The setting is a little greener, the village is a little more developed, and the characters follow a central storyline about a “bride exchange”, which may seem bizarre yet appealing to the urban audience. What brings the film and the show together is their aim to present a hyperreal lens into rural India.
“A large number of films and series on over-the-top (OTT) platforms are depicting stories from rural areas and of people living on the fringes of society,” says Sadia Sohail, programme coordinator (ecology) at Heinrich Boell Stiftung and a member of a jury for the 12th CMS Vatavaran Film Festival in 2024. “These people and stories are often not present in the political imagination of the middle class living in the urban parts of the country,” Sohail tells DTE.
Stories with a message
The rising affinity to rural India in media is perhaps due to two major factors—disenchantment with the city life and environmental crisis becoming a part of popular discourse. “There is a noticeable rise in films that grapple with environmental and social issues, often set in rural landscapes that have traditionally been marginalised in mainstream cinema. This shift is critical as it brings these underrepresented stories to a broader audience, even if primarily through OTT platforms,” says Sohail. Laapataa Ladies proves a good example of this—halfway through the film, one of the protagonists is shown educating farmers on the benefits of natural pesticides over chemicals. She later reveals a desire to study agricultural science. Even Panchayat tries to highlight issues surrounding slow development in rural areas and inequitable access to amenities due to a hierarchical system.
“There are several more examples, such as the films Kadvi Hawa (2017) and Sherni (2021). Even the big-budget Jawaan (2023) has a sequence alluding to the Bhopal gas tragedy and how corporates undermine safeguards risking the lives of people and the environment. In Netflix’s The Archies (2023), a group of young students resolve to save a community park from being axed by developers to build a hotel. And how can one forget the award-winning documentaries from 2022, All That Breathes and The Elephant Whisperers,” says Sohail.
This trend is not confined to Hindi language content. Kadvi Hawa filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda has brought environment storytelling to the forefront, through films like Kalira Atita (2020) in the Odia language. Similarly, Marathi filmmaker Nagraj Manjule is touted for shining a light on casteism in 21st century India through the films Fandry (2013) and Sairat (2016).
In south India, filmmakers like Ram (Kattradhu Thamizh, 2007) and Vetrimaaran (Visaaranai, 2016) have shown complex caste issues in rural setups. TVF launched a Tamil remake of Panchayat, Thalaivettiyaan Paalayam, on Prime Video this year.
Rural and peri-urban settings were also central to Malayalam films like Maheshinte Prathikaram (2016), Kumbalangi Nights (2019) and Jallikattu (2019). Telugu films like Rangasthalam (2018) offer vibrant portrayals of village life, while Kannada films like Thithi (2015) explore themes of displacement, tradition and community bonds. With these many examples, it is easy to conclude that media has returned to villages to highlight issues or send messages. But then we stumble upon a film like the Maithili language Gamak Ghar (2019), which is purely nostalgic. The film, centred around a family’s ancestral village home, serves as an homage to the slower, simpler life of decades past. In such films, the rural backdrop is not just a setting but a living character that shapes the narrative as much as the people.
A dynamic connection
The resurgence of rural is in a way, a full-circle moment for Indian cinema, which began its journey deeply rooted in the rural ethos before becoming urban-centric after 1991, coinciding with the advent of liberalisation.
The connection between the camera and the Indian countryside has been dynamic, reflecting the changes in the country’s socio-economic fabric. In the 1950s, filmmakers like Bimal Roy (Do Bigha Zamin, 1953), Satyajit Ray (Pather Panchali, 1955), and Mehboob Khan (Mother India, 1957) pioneered cinematic portrayal of rural life. Do Bigha Zamin, a poignant tale of a poor farmer’s struggle to reclaim his land, starkly depicted the grim reality of rural poverty and the systemic injustices faced by the agrarian class. Mother India, often hailed as the epitome of Indian cinema, depicted the indomitable spirit of a rural woman who battles against both nature and societal pressures. This era laid the foundation for rural narratives, portraying them with a blend of social realism and deep empathy.
Then in the 1970s-80s, India witnessed a wave of parallel cinema. Films of the era included Satyajit Ray’s Ashani Sanket that depicted the fear and weariness of famines, or Ritwik Ghatak’s Titash Ekti Nodir Naam on the lives of fisherfolk. Directors like Shyam Benegal with Ankur (1974) and Manthan (1976), and Govind Nihalani with Aakrosh (1980) explored themes such as caste oppression, agrarian distress, and rural exploitation.
The 1990s and 2000s were marked by the popularity of Bollywood, where the aspirational, sophisticated and fast city life took centre stage. Stories showed characters moving out of India or relocating from villages to cities for better amenities, lifestyle and livelihood, says Anugyan Nag, assistant professor of film, media and cultural studies, AJK Mass Communication Research Center, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. “Many different genres or styles of cinema were being shown after the rural films’ era of Indian cinema. Films made by Ram Gopal Verma and Anurag Kashyap showed a different, grittier and violent side of rural life and even a darker version of Mumbai or ‘Bombay’ in their films,” Nag tells DTE.
Perhaps the deep penetration of the Internet and the rise of regional voices in the “global village” has enabled a cultural shift, bringing the camera lens back to India’s rural roots.
(With inputs from Midhun Vijayan)
This was first published in the 16-31 December, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth