He chose his own village, Jeur in Karmala Taluka of Solapur district, Maharashtra as the setting.[3] Over two years, Manjule worked on 50 drafts of the screenplay before "intuition took over as the muse".[1] Manjule said that the film is about "the challenges of an inter-caste romance, but in a mainstream format."[4] He had begun working on the story of Sairat in 2009, but left it after he found it "boring".[5] After writing the script, he read it to his family and friends and saw how it "moved people".[6] Manjule finished the script in December 2014.[7] The dialogue was written by his brother, Bharat.[6]