One Seed at a Time

One Seed at a Time (2025) begins with Dwaraka Waghmare recalling how her family survived on low-quality grain collected as remuneration for the menial domestic labour they undertook in the homes of oppressor-caste Marathas. Her memory anchors the film’s exploration of the role  caste and gender play in shaping access to food, land, and dignity. Caste hierarchy prohibits land ownership for Dalit farmers: the land they are allowed to cultivate remains fraught with oppressor-caste claims over it (for cattle-grazing, for instance), and is often stony and fallow, furthering financial and nutritional insecurities.

A gradual change is nonetheless visible. The women featured in the documentary have begun sowing indigenous varieties of lentils, vegetables, and millets. They also use natural fertilisers and pesticides on small parcels of land that they have fought hard to secure. The lack of land ownership and decision-making power that defines the Dalit women farmers’ condition lies at the intersection of caste-based and gendered oppression, with the two compounding each other. The women’s resistance to this makes visible their localised agency. It also brings to the fore the structural conditions they are attempting to resist.

This story has been published in 15 Indian languages.