‘‘Ankur"— The Suppressed Seed

- Aaditeyo Sen

Shyam Benegal's Ankur (1974) is a touchstone of Indian parallel cinema. It is notable for its unflinching, unromanticised presentation of discrimination on grounds of caste, class, and gender in rural India. With no excessive drama and no music to accompany us, the film simply presents us a world in which inequality is the norm—normalised, unquestioned, and deep-seated.

The action shifts to an Andhra Pradesh village, centring around Laxmi, a Dalit woman who works as a domestic help. Her deaf-mute, alcoholic husband, Kishtayya, abandoned the village, after which she was alone. She begins working at the home of Surya, the educated son of an upper-caste landlord, who has just returned from the city after inheriting his father's land.

In the initial stages, Surya presents himself as liberal and progressive. He listens to Western Classical Music, reads, and speaks to Laxmi in what looks like respect. But soon it is revealed that his actions are not out of equality but because he feels entitled. When he begins having a sexual relationship with Laxmi, the film does not attempt to make it glamorous. Laxmi is unable to say no. The power imbalance is overwhelming—he is upper-caste, landholding, and male; she is poor, Dalit, and single. What appears to be personal desire is really social domination.

The people around them—village women, elders, and religious figures—condemn Laxmi or remain silent. No one speaks out against Surya. He is protected by his caste, class, and gender. Laxmi stands alone, judged and exposed in comparison. Abused and left to one side, she never quite has the room to speak up. Her silence is not weakness—it is survival that she has learnt.

Benegal doesn't impose the legal system or any external authority upon the story. That is on purpose. The movie quietly criticises the way justice rarely reaches someone like Laxmi. When caste dictates everything—what one eats, where one worships, who speaks and who does not—the law has a tendency to mirror social hierarchies rather than subvert them.

The film’s approach is largely Marxist in its analysis of social structure. Land, labour, and power are central forces in Ankur. The characters are not just individuals—they are positioned within a larger economic and caste-based system. Surya’s control over land and Laxmi’s dependence on work reflect a feudal structure that survives beneath the surface of modern education and civility.

In the final scene, a boy, having observed much of the tale at the margins, throws a stone against Surya's door. It's not melodramatic, but it matters. It breaks the stillness. It signals a shift, however infinitesimal. The movement suggests there is an onlooker, there is a thinker, and someone may not accept things as they stand.

Even today, Ankur remains relevant. Indian domestic workers still face institutionalised injustice. Caste and class bias, even when less explicit at times, persists in city homes, institutions, and workplaces. Gender-based exploitation persists, often under the cover of civility and modernity. Ankur shows us how oppression works subtly through social conditioning and unchecked power.

Benegal does not give a solution or a message of hope. He simply leaves the audience with a query: If this is the way it is, then what can we do about it? 

That's what makes Ankur enduring—not just as cinema, but as a Marxist critique of society itself.

“এসে দাঁড়াও, ভেসে দাঁড়াও, এবং ভালোবেসে দাঁড়াও

মানুষ বড়ো কাঁদছে, তুমি মানুষ হয়ে পাশে দাঁড়াও”—শক্তি চট্টোপাধ্যায়