Ep. 16: A Family Affair- Women and Panchayat Politics

The dominant volume of patriotism these days is loud: nationalism at the chest-thumping, bullet-whizzing, thali-clanging frequency of films, like Uri: The Surgical Strike, that make the anthem cued up in theatres before them sound harsh and hectoring. No less scripted but much more quietly compelling is the patriotism of the season finale of Panchayat, the Amazon Prime Video series, in which a mahila pradhan (woman panchayat leader) played by Neena Gupta unfurls the tricolour and haltingly sings Jana Gana Mana for the first time in her life. The whole show is a throwback to a less macho form of patriotism, an appeal to the disenchanted and politically disengaged generation embodied by its protagonist Abhishek Tripathi, a reluctant civil servant. In