A STEP TOWARD SELF-GOVERNANCE
Ek kadam swashasan ki or — a documentary and field-study project on how local governance actually changes at the ground level.
Documentary & Field Study
Teesri Sarkar Abhiyan
Muzaffarnagar, UP
Study, Direction & Production
Two documentary films — one around 7 minutes, one around 22 — and a field study of roughly 50 pages, documenting a three-year grassroots governance experiment across five village wards in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. Commissioned by Teesri Sarkar Abhiyan and delivered on a near-charity budget with a two-person team.
Project Overview
India's Constitution gives Panchayats the status of local self-government and treats them as institutions in their own right. Teesri Sarkar Abhiyan (TSA) is a platform that has worked for years on the institutional development of Panchayats and on preparing them to actually play that self-government role.
As part of that work, TSA ran an experiment called the Ward Level Local Self-development Group (WLSG) programme — running in five wards across five panchayats in Muzaffarnagar, and also in Prayagraj. The Muzaffarnagar experiment had been running for around three years. TSA handed MediaMen Services two connected tasks at once: to study what had happened over those three years, and to document it on film.
The Study
A ward member does not hold one role — they hold four at the same time. The study measured how well members were carrying each of them over three years, using a set of human indicators rather than easy numbers.
The Four Roles
- As an elected ward member
- As lead of the Ward Sabha
- As a member of the village Panchayat
- On village committees — health, education, administration, finance, water
The Indicators
- How fully each role was being carried out
- Whether the village recognised the role
- Whether Pradhans cooperated
- Change on the ground, and in members' own thinking
The roughly 50-page study was written by Ayushi, the single associate TSA assigned to the project, and finalised under MediaMen Services' supervision.
The Challenge
This was a low-budget project handled close to charity. TSA provided almost no financial support and only one person to work with us. There was very little supporting footage or archive material to draw on — and a hard deadline landed almost immediately.
The Constraints
- 01 Budget — a near-charity engagement, one associate from TSA, no production budget to speak of
- 02 Material — very little background footage or supporting material was made available
- 03 Deadline — TSA needed something to present within a week of handing over the project
- 04 Subject — documenting soft, human change: mindset, cooperation, personal growth, not simple metrics
The Approach
We worked in two passes. First, a quick 7-minute film assembled inside a week so TSA had something to present. Then, using the same narrative spine plus a short field shoot, a fuller 22-minute documentary. The field shoot ran roughly three days; the films were edited from whatever we could capture and the little archive that existed.
7-Minute Presentation Cut
A fast, tight film built within a week of the brief, so TSA had something to present while the full production was still being planned.
22-Minute Documentary
The detailed film, built out from the same content with a three-day field shoot and edited to carry the full story of the experiment.
~50-Page Field Study
A proper written study of the three-year experiment, structured around the four roles and the change indicators, finalised under our supervision.
Indicator Framework
The lens for both the study and the films — role performance, village recognition, Pradhan cooperation, and grassroots and personal change.
Deliverables
2
~50pg
5
The films turned out genuinely motivational. They show something simple and real: when a ward member works in the field with their own identity, things on the ground actually begin to change — and we got to see that change first-hand.
Lessons Learned
Identity drives change: When a ward member steps into the field with their own identity and role, the grassroots shift. The documentary itself became a piece of learning about how that happens.
The Pradhan fear was wrong: We expected village heads to resist — to feel their one-man hold on the panchayat being threatened. In at least two places the opposite happened. Pradhans cooperated once they saw it lightened their load and gave them someone to share responsibility with.
Constraints don't cancel substance: Near-zero budget and almost no archive footage, yet the films carry real weight — because the change on the ground was real. This one was a learning for MediaMen Services and for TSA alike.