Anusha Rizvi’s satire, India’s first contender at the Sundance Film Festival, and an entry at the 2011 Oscar, remains a searing portrait of farmer suicides and media voyeurism that still echoes through headlines
Peepli Live opens with perhaps the most gut-wrenching dialogue in the history of Indian cinema. In the scorching heat of central India, Natha (played by Omkar Das Manikpuri) wakes up from a dream next to his elder brother, Budhia (Raghubir Yadav), in a packed tempo, taking them back to their village. He turns to his brother and says, “Bhaiya, zameen chali gayi toh kya hoga?” (Brother, what will happen if we lose our land?). Budhia has nothing to offer him as a response and just looks on, before Natha pukes out of the tempo window. The fusion rock band Indian Ocean plays the tunes of Des Mera over the opening titles, and this is how we enter the world of Peepli.
With this vignette, director Anusha Rizvi sets the tone for her provocative satire on the Indian countryside, which has completed 15 years since its initial release in August 2010. Even as a lot may appear to have changed in the intervening period, Rizvi’s sensitive yet satirical exploration of the farmer’s suicide and the state of television media, drawn from her own experience, makes it a compelling watch even today.
Focus on the agrarian life
Peepli Live stands out on multiple levels, including the feat of being the first Indian film to compete at the Sundance Film Festival as well as being selected as India’s official entry at the Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Film category in 2011. However, beyond these accolades, the film centres on agrarian life, which has been completely marginalised in mainstream Hindi cinema. Produced by Aamir Khan, the film contrasts this life with the larger politics around farm suicides.
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In the fictional state of Mukhiya Pradesh, two farming brothers, Natha and Budhia, are on the verge of losing their land due to outstanding debt. A village politician proposes that they end their lives so that their family can use the Rs 1 lakh as compensation to settle the debt. His brother and Natha quarrel over who should die. While Natha is hesitant, his brother is pleased to push for this ‘honour.’ After a journalist overhears the conversation, the story goes viral and makes Natha famous. A slew of politicians swarm the village in anticipation of the impending local elections in an attempt to gain an electoral advantage. India’s rural poverty problem suddenly rises to the top of the national agenda. Everyone is curious about Natha’s future.
It is not uncommon to see Hindi films on social issues today, especially with the likes of Akshay Kumar and Ayushmann Khurrana leading them. But inevitably, films such as Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017), Pad Man (2018), Bala (2019) and Anek (2022) get stuck in the loop of checking tick boxes to find the ‘social’ in the ‘issue’. Rizvi, instead, allows the film to soak in its own realities — whether it’s the village of Peepli, the elite newsrooms chasing TRPs in New Delhi, or the sprawling bungalows of politicians making life-and-death choices for the likes of Natha. She doesn’t need to import the humour; it only needs to be discovered.
Once Rakesh, a local stringer played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, breaks the news of Natha planning to commit suicide, the immediate response of the local administration is to award Natha a “Lal Bahadur,” a euphemism for a scheme named after former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri that provides a hand pump. Meanwhile, the sensationalist media runs around manufacturing stories out of everything, from the village temple to even Natha’s excrement. Rizvi reveals not only the desperate side of television journalism, with sharp parallels to today, but also highlights the role of the English-language media in shaping the government’s agenda. In the process, she exposes the media’s own contradictions through competing news channels willing to go to any lengths to capture the biggest breaking news.
Plight of the urban poor
The central theme, however, continues to be how the ulterior interests of the government, bureaucracy and media weigh down heavily on the life of an ordinary citizen. Thus, a domestic drama in Natha’s house encompasses questions of globalisation and caste politics. As the brothers decide to take the route of suicide to extinguish their family woes, Natha’s wife Dhaniya (Shalini Vatsa) and his mother (Farrukh Jaffar) add a layer of sharp tension through their bickering. The everyday struggles to preserve the dignity of the family become part of the drama for survival. Natha’s house is not a place of refuge but a battlefield of poverty where individual frustrations spill into constant conflict.
Further, what begins as a private matter of one man’s despair becomes a national spectacle once the media and politicians descend on the family’s courtyard. Seeing the economic potential of the setting, villagers set up eateries and stalls to entertain the ever-growing crowd. The home, instead of being a private space, is invaded, dramatising how political and media machinery corrupt domestic life.
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While farmers’ suicide and agrarian debt are not new phenomena, it has snowballed after neoliberal reforms from the early 1990s onwards, to the point where it should be considered a national crisis. The passing of the three farm laws by the BJP-led Union government in September 2020 triggered widespread protests by farmers across the country, leading to over-a-year-long sit-in at the Delhi border led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha. Agitations of farmers are not uncommon in various other parts of the country, led by farmers' unions, which lead long marches and protests to demand their rights. While documentary films like Marching in the Dark (2024), Farming The Revolution (2024), and Trolley Times (2023) have caught up to the collective resistance being put up by the farmers, Rizvi’s portrayal ends up as an individual story.
As the film comes to a close, Natha manages to escape public attention and slip away from the village, with many considering him dead. In the search for Natha, Rizvi’s camera zooms past his house and traverses streets and highways. We find Natha, very much alive, sitting amongst workers of a construction site of an up-and-coming high-rise in New Delhi. The disdain and loss of trust are evident on his face. To conclude her film, Rizvi centres the plight of the urban poor, pointing to the increased migration from villages to cities as the folk song Chola Maati Ke Ram plays in the background.
Fifteen years on, Peepli Live still resonates as more than just a satire on media sensationalism. At its heart, it remains a piercing domestic drama about a family trapped in cycles of poverty, where the private despair of one man becomes fodder for national spectacle. With this fusion, Rizvi compels us to confront the costs of systemic neglect and reminds us that behind every statistic of farmer suicide lies a fractured household, a silenced voice, and a story of survival.
