PANCHAYATS, PATRIARCHY AND PROTECTION: DIGITAL DISCOURSES ON WOMEN LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES IN RURAL INDIA

Women’s representation in India’s Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) has expanded dramatically since the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, yet their presence remains mediated by entrenched patriarchal norms and a pervasive rhetoric of “protection”. This article examines how such dynamics are discursively constructed in public texts, treating NGO manuals, policy and human rights reports, news articles and campaign materials (1993–2020) as a corpus of digital cultural artefacts that document contemporary imaginaries of rural governance. Anchored in feminist institutionalism, feminist debates on protection and paternalism, and theories of political representation, the study employs qualitative content analysis combined with critical discourse analysis to examine 127 purposively sampled documents. The findings show that women local representatives are repeatedly framed as carers, moral guardians, development brokers and, less frequently, rights advocates, with protective tropes legitimising their presence while narrowing their acceptable roles. Panchayats emerge as protectors of “weaker sections”, disciplinarians enforcing moral order and male dominated arenas that continue to centre elder male authority. Gender based harms, including domestic and political violence, are acknowledged but unevenly named, oscillating between paternalistic and rights-based framings. The article argues that these digital discourses form part of the intangible cultural heritage of rural India, shaping how protection, patriarchy and women’s political agency are understood. It concludes with implications for practitioners seeking to reframe protection in more agency centred, intersectional and gender just ways.