Hari Mondal(Om Puri) is a poor village farmer who lives in the remote Bengal village of Giripur in Birbhum district with his wife, two sons, brother, an old widowed aunt Kalidashi (Gita Sen)and her daughter Panchi. The movie opens in the mid sixties when the Naxalbari uprising is spreading across Bengal and oppressed farmers are being united by youths who believe in communism and a socialist republic.