Aarva

Scroll.in ·Behind the news

Bimal Roy’s ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ and the Never-ending Race Against Poverty

by Nandini Ramnath

Published 2026-06-10 06:00:02+00:00

What connects a man outrunning a horse carriage in 1953 to the gig workers of today?

0:00 / 9:30 · Narrator Sulafat

Context

Published on 10 June 2026, this look back at Bimal Roy’s 1953 film Do Bigha Zamin centers on a desperate farmer pulling a hand-drawn rickshaw through Kolkata to pay off a rural debt. The essay revisits the movie following a recent restoration, but it stays relevant for a sharper reason. The brutal economic machine the director captured never really went away. The displaced villager breaking his back in the city to survive is still everywhere. Today, he just works on a construction site or drives for a gig app.

Show notes

A production history of Bimal Roy's 1953 film Do Bigha Zamin and its depiction of rural debt and forced migration in India. Details how lead actor Balraj Sahni prepared for his role as a rickshaw puller and outlines the director's use of location shooting on the streets of Kolkata. Concludes by connecting the movie's themes of displacement to the conditions of modern migrant workers.

Read on Scroll.in →