"Neem Ka Ped" tells the story of a ""asami"" (tenant/serf labourer) and his landlord. The story starts in pre-independent India and ends in post-independent India, showing the vagaries of both the feudal and democratic systems in India with its darker side. The main protagonist is a landless labourer Budhai Ram (Pankaj Kapoor), who is very faithful and obedient to his master (landlord Zaamin Miya played by Arun Bali), and dreams only of making his only son Sukhi Ram an educated person. Fortunes dwindle in landlord's home and he is sentenced to jail for murder of an upcoming politician because of manipulations of his cousin (Muslim Miya, played by S.M. Zaheer), who is also a politician and landlord but nurses a grudge against Muslim Miya.