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The rice leaf folder, Cnaphalocrocis medinalis Guenée (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), an important foliage feeding insect in rice, Oryza sativa L. (Poaceae), is widely distributed throughout Asia, causing frequent outbreaks and considerable yield losses. Mutants of the rice strain Samba Mahsuri (MSM) represent unique plant material and are explored here for the first time for resistance to the rice leaf folder. Stringent rapid field screening for two consecutive seasons led to the identification of 10 lines as moderately resistant, with low damage area as well as low damage score. Upon assessment of various morphological traits potentially contributing to the resistance, damage area was negatively correlated with leaf length and positively with leaf width. Among the biochemical traits, leaf nitrogen content was positively correlated with leaf folder damage whereas silica was negatively correlated. Oviposition preference by leaf folder adult moths and larval settling preference were low on MSM 139 and MSM 127. We also observed that leaf folder larvae took more time for leaf selection (3.1 min) and making a primary fold (41.5 min), with more head swings (846) in moderately resistant MSM lines. Similarly, in these lines, leaf folders showed a low intrinsic rate of increase (rm = 0.15 females per female per day), low weekly multiplication rate (2.85), and low net reproductive rate (R0 = 137.5 females per female per generation) with increased generation time (T = 32.8 days) and doubling time (4.5 days), indicating their relatively poor population growth potential. Overall, the moderately resistant mutant lines we identified showed reduced ovipositional preference and larval settling preference, extended larval developmental period with low survival, reduced primary fold length, and an increased number of binds and head swings with a low intrinsic rate of increase resulting in reduced population build‐up. These lines possessing a good genetic makeup have a great potential to be used in breeding programs for the development of leaf folder resistant varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]