Back to the Village: A Documentary Film

Working in consultation with Dr. T. Scarlett Epstein, Nagathihalli Chandrashekar, and Mr. T. Thimmegowda, the director of this 26-minute documentary film intends to document, through a villager's eyes, what globalisation means for India's rural population. The urban migration of the rural economically poor, as predicted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Population Report of 2007, in Africa and Asia will cause the urban population to double between 2000 and 2030; and, as a result, the developing countries' urban centres will make up 81 percent of urban humanity. Small villages in South India are undergoing migration, as documented here, due to lack of investment. The film spotlights the growing urban middle class and the entrepreneurs from the textile industry, whose workers are urban immigrants from the countryside.

The film is the result of longitudinal anthropological style socio-economic studies of two South Indian villages. Its major theme centres on the cause and effect of rural-urban migration, taking the position that governments, pushed on by investment, in India and elsewhere, are building industrial centres, draining funding for the rural sector.

The film is available for purchase from Dr. T. Scarlett Epstein through the contact information below.