Manjhi – The Mountain Man

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

In 1960s Gehlaur, a small village near Gaya, Bihar, Dashrath Manjhi belongs to a marginalized, lower-caste community routinely exploited by the local landlord (Mukhiya). To escape forced labor and systemic oppression, a young Dashrath runs away from home, finding work in the Dhanbad coal mines. Years later, he returns to Gehlaur as a spirited young man, where he falls deeply in love with and marries his childhood sweetheart, Phaguniya Devi, despite resistance from her father due to Dashrath’s unstable past.

The village is isolated from essential public amenities by a massive, treacherous rocky mountain ridge. To reach the nearest town, Wazirganj, for work or medical care, residents must embark on a perilous climb over the ridge or travel a grueling 55-kilometer detour around it. While heavily pregnant with their second child, Phaguniya climbs the steep mountain to bring Dashrath his lunch. She slips on the loose gravel, tumbling down the rocky face. A panicked Dashrath carries her bleeding body around the mountain to the hospital in Wazirganj, but the delay proves fatal; Phaguniya dies, though doctors manage to save their newborn daughter.

Devastated by grief and fueled by intense anger toward the mountain, Dashrath sells his livestock to purchase a hammer, a chisel, and crowbars. He vows to single-handedly carve a path through the ridge so no other villager faces the same tragedy. His neighbors, including his own father, mock his endeavor, branding him a lunatic. Undeterred, Dashrath begins his solitary, back-breaking labor.

Over the course of 22 years, Dashrath faces severe personal, environmental, and political hardships. A prolonged drought forces the villagers to abandon Gehlaur; Dashrath stays behind, drinking muddy water and eating leaves to survive while continuing to hammer the rock. He confronts systemic government corruption when he seeks financial support or tools, at one point walking more than 1,000 kilometers along railway tracks to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, only to be turned away by corrupt bureaucrats. Back home, the local landlord and corrupt police officers threaten his life and try to claim the mountain area for illegal logging, but the community eventually rallies behind Dashrath's immovable resolve.

By 1982, Dashrath successfully cuts a path 360 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 25 feet deep directly through the ridge, reducing the travel distance between Gehlaur and Wazirganj from 55 kilometers to just 15 kilometers. Though he becomes a legendary figure, true institutional reform remains slow. Dashrath dies in 2007 from gallbladder cancer before witnessing the fully modernized outcome of his sacrifice.

The film concludes with a poignant postscript stating that in 2011—52 years after Dashrath first struck the stone, 30 years after he finished his labor, and 4 years after his death—the state government finally laid a proper metalled road through his carved path, validating his lifelong struggle for his village's development.

• Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Dashrath Manjhi
• Radhika Apte as Phaguniya-Dashrath's wife
• Sneha Pallavi as Phaguniya's Mother
• Tigmanshu Dhulia as Mukhiya (landlord)^[12]
• Pankaj Tripathi as Ruab (the landlord's son)
• Gaurav Dwivedi as Alok Jha (a journalist)
• Urmila Mahanta as Lauki
• Ashraful Haque as Magru-Dashrath's father^[13]
• Jagat Rawat as Shuklaji
• Varadraj Swami as Gopal's Father
• Deepa Sahi as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
• Prashant Narayanan as Jhumru
• Rashaana Shah as Bhanwari

Sweta Kaushal of Hindustan Times termed the film an inspiring, touching tale of a common man and gave the film 4.5 stars out of 5.^[14] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film 3 stars.^[6] Meena Iyer of Times of India gave it 3 stars.^[15] Bollywood Hungama gave it 2.5 stars.^[16] Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express gave it two stars.^[17]