The satth is the gathering. It is the men of a village sitting together in one place, on a platform under a tree or on a raised chabutra by the gate, and it is also the word for that place.
It is where a dispute got settled before it went anywhere else, where a marriage was discussed, where news arrived, and where a boy learned who everybody was and what had happened before he was born.
The satth was not the panchayat and had no formal standing. It had no minutes and no membership. It also had no women, and no place for anyone from the outer part of the village, which is the other half of what it was.
It has thinned. Television, then the mobile phone, then emigration took the men out of it. Many villages still have the platform.
This project is named for it because a satth is the only place most of what is on this site was ever said, and because almost none of it was written down.
The satth is the men's gathering place, under a tree or on a platform at the edge of the village, where news is exchanged, disputes are aired and the day is passed.
It has no membership and no officers and it is not the panchayat, though the same men sit in both. What is decided at the satth is what the village then agrees to.
The trinjan was the women's equivalent, where the spinning and the phulkari were done together. It went with the spinning wheel and the satth is going with the phone.