Plot

Mahavir Singh Phogat, a former wrestler, decides to fulfill his dream of winning a gold medal for his country by training his daughters for the Commonwealth Games despite the existing social stigmas.

Biopic of Mahavir Singh Phogat, who taught wrestling to his daughters Babita Kumari and Geeta Phogat. Geeta Phogat was India's first female wrestler to win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she won the gold medal (55 kg) while her sister Babita Kumari won the silver (51 kg).—Dibyayan_Chakravorty

Dangal is a biography of a real life patriotic fighter Mahavir Singh Phogat who raises his daughters and evolves them into World Class Fighters. The movie begins with a crochy brawl between Mahavir (Aamir Khan) and his colleague who was also former wrestler, thus embalming the terrific Dangal Theme, discovering Mahavir's past life of a Wrestler. Mahavir admires to make his dreams come true by his sons but on contrary, four daughters take birth. They come with a complaint of beating down a boy in their locality. Hence Mahavir hopes they would be future Wrestlers. So he trains his daughters Gita and Babita, thus proving they're no less than a professional male wrestler. After a long struggle, Gita enters the National level Wrestling and acquires victory. When she is up to the Internationals, she opts to get trained from the NSA(National Sports Academy) where a coach mis-trains Gita, due to which she deliberately fails every match she attempts. Her sister Babita also attains an age to get into Wresting. Now, Mahavir plans to train both by his own norms. Finally, Gita defeats an Australian Wrestler by following the predominant path of her father, not of the coach. The movie is par excellent, enridges Women Empowerment in the Nation.—Srivathsavan Iyengar

Mahavir Singh Phogat is a former wrestling champion had to quit the sport due to his family pressure as it was not helping his family financially.He only dreams that his son should win Gold Medal for India in wrestling but back to back he has four daughter's.Mahavir feels his dream cant be complete and starts staying away from the sport,while his daughter Geeta and Babita are growing the notices that they have quality of being wrestlers and starts training them,Geeta and Babita have to get a hard training and start to dislike their father for this but they realize that their father is doing this for their betterment and take the sport seriously. Geeta soon becomes a a known wrestler in the state and wins Junior International.Geeta further has to Patiala for further training to participate in common wealth games where she has a new coach Pramod Kadam.Meanwhile Babita makes her name at Junior level.Geeta believes her coach's training is better than her father which makes Mahavir very depressed.—alex.mjacko@gmail.com

Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) is an amateur wrestler, trained in the Pehlwani style of Indian wrestling, is a national wrestling champion residing in Balali, Haryana. His average Indian father forces him to give up the sport to obtain gainful employment. He was unable to complete at the Olympics or win a gold medal for India and vows that his son will. Mahavir laments the lack of institutional support for wrestling in India, which is why he had to get a paying job to support his family. Mahavir says that wrestling gave him respect and fame but did not give him any money.

Mahavir watches an Olympic Game for Wrestling in his office. TV was broadcasting that India's role in wrestling is very poor. A new employee joined at the office Vivan Bhatena challenges Mahavir to wrestle and loses. Mahavir also works part time at a local wrestling ring (Akhaada) and he is very talented in terms of wrestling and it's technique.

Mahavir is disappointed when his wife Daya Shobha Kaur (Sakshi Tanwar) gives birth to four daughters Geeta, Babita, Ritu (Ananya Sharma) and Sangeeta (Lakshita Goyal). He gives up his dream thinking that girls cannot wrestle (and only a boy could have fulfilled his dream) and should only be taught household chores.

Finally, Mahavir Singh loses all hope, and he locks away all his wrestling equipment and medal in a trunk. After 13-14 years, one day a neighbor family having two sons aged 13-14 years comes to Mahavir's house to complain about their sons being beaten up by Geeta and Babita. He learns that Geeta (Fatima Sana Shaikh) and Babita (Sanya Malhotra) came home after beating up two boys in response to derogatory comments, Mahavir realizes his daughters have the potential to become wrestlers. Mahavir says that gold is gold, whether girl wins it or a boy. Mahavir says that Geeta and Babita have wrestling in their blood. Omkar (Aparshakti Khurana) is Mahavir's nephew, and son of Rajpal (Anurag Arora), Mahavir's brother.

Daya asks Mahavir not to ruin the girl's lives for his passion. Mahavir asks his wife for permission to train their daughters and asks her to look the other way for one year. He says if he cannot make them wrestlers in a year, he will make peace with his dreams for the rest of his life. He decrees that both girls will not do any household chores and will now only train for wrestling.

Mahavir begins coaching Geeta and Babita in wrestling. His methods seem harsh, including grueling early morning workouts. When Geeta and Babita complain about how their hair are ruined due to training in dirt - he calls a barber and cut their hairs off. They are not allowed any pickles, oily or spicy foods either.

Mahavir builds the girls a custom wrestling pit in his own field, when the local wrestling arenas refuse to give entry to girls. Mahavir requests Rajpal to loan him Omkar, so the girls can practice their wrestling against him. Against Omkar, Mahavir finds that the girls lack the basic strength in their body. He orders that the girls be fed non-veg food to get some protein in them. Daya refuses to cook chicken in her kitchen, so Mahavir and Omkar learn to cook it on their own. Both sisters are very angry on Mahavir since he is being very cruel by making two girl child training as a wrestler. So they start doing little tricks to him by changing the alarm and eating spicy food whenever they can and not wrestling properly.

Initially, the girls resent their father for his treatment, but they soon realize that their father wants them to have a future and not grow up to be stereotypical housewives. They attend the wedding of one of their cousins and complain to her about Mahavir's treatment. But the cousin makes them realize that Mahavir is fighting the whole world silently for the sake of his daughters and to give them a future. The girls realize that without Mahavir, they would be only good for housework and breeding children.

The girls become motivated and willingly participate in Mahavir's coaching. Mahavir takes the girls to wrestling tournaments. The Dangals are waning in popularity, and they allow Geeta to compete as a girl versus boy bout will attract huge crowds. Almost all village arrives to see a girl fighting and everyone is positive that she will lose very badly. Geeta chooses the strongest boy among the competitors to wrestle. She fights really good as opposed to what villagers were thinking. As the fight continues everyone in crowd starts cheering for Geeta. Geeta loses her first bout against a strong wrestler but breaks all stereotypes in the process and establishes herself as a serious contender. She wins more prize money from sponsors then the boy.

Due to the loss, Geeta is not able to sleep and asks his father when the next wrestling fight will be organized. All the people in village who were previously accusing and back-biting about Mahavir, now starts cheering for Geeta and Babita and looks towards them with pride. Both the sisters soon become impossible-to-defeat and wins every next wrestling competition. Mahavir asks for 2 months leave to train Geeta for Junior Nationals but is denied. So, he quits his job. Geeta goes on to win the junior and senior championships at the state and national levels before heading to the National Sports Academy in Patiala to train for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games.

Geeta makes friends at the institute and begins to disregard the discipline she had been brought up with. She regularly watches films, eats junk food and grows her hair longer. Her coach Pramod Kadam's (Girish Kulkarni) training differs significantly from her father's techniques. Geeta believes her coach's techniques are better and that Mahavir's techniques are weak.

On a visit home, she is determined to show her father she can wrestle well without his techniques. This leads to a ferocious bout between Geeta and Mahavir. Mahavir loses against Geeta due to his age. Babita tells Geeta that she shouldn't forget her father's techniques and reminds her that it is because of their father that she is where she is now. Mahavir is also upset about the incident and thinks that he has lost her daughter.

Soon after, Babita wins the national championship and follows Geeta to the academy. Babita sees that Geeta is more interested in fashion, looks, and entertainment, rather than training. Geeta finds herself losing every match as she is not following her father's techniques. Her coach indicates that she might not be capable of winning medals at international level. After the two sisters have an emotional conversation in which Babita provides her encouragement.

Realizing her error, she tearfully makes peace with Mahavir. For the upcoming Commonwealth Games 2010 organized in New Delhi, India Pramod asks Geeta to change her category from 55 Kgs to 51 Kgs, which Geeta is not OK with. Mahavir comes to the institute and begins coaching Geeta and Babita, using the same methods as when they were younger. Their coach is furious with Mahavir's interference and wants to expel them both from the institution, but a deal is struck to allow them to continue as long as Mahavir does not enter the institution or train them elsewhere.

Determined to continue assisting his daughters, Mahavir obtains tapes of Geeta's previous unsuccessful bouts and coaches her by pointing out her errors over the phone. Mahavir finds that the coach has messed up Geeta's naturally attacking game by getting her to focus on technique. Geeta wins her trial bouts to qualify for the Commonwealth games in the 55 Kg category.

During Geeta's bouts in the Commonwealth Games, Mahavir constantly contradicts her coach's instructions while sitting in the audience. Geeta disregards her coach and follows her father's instructions and wins every bout. In the final, Geeta is facing an Australian opponent whom she has lost to twice already. At a press conference Geeta gives the credit of her success to her father and excludes any mention of her coach. The night before the final, Mahavir tells Geeta to fight for every girl who was denied her opportunity in life.

Just before the final bout, Geeta's jealous coach conspires to lock Mahavir in a closet far away from the arena. In the bout, Geeta manages to win the first session but loses the second. Trailing 1-5 in the final session and with nine seconds left, she recalls the tactics taught by her father and a 5-pointer, and executes it on her opponent in the final three seconds, taking the score to 6-5 in her favor, thus winning the session and the bout 2-1.

Despite her father's absence, Geeta manages to win the final bout and becomes the first Indian female wrestler to win gold. Mahavir returns just in time to embrace his daughters, frustrating the coach's hopes of obtaining credit before the news media.

Babita also won gold in wrestling at the Commonwealth Games in 2014, Geeta became the first Indian female wrestler to qualify for the Olympics and Mahavir's efforts inspired dozens of Indian women to participate in wrestling.