Paatal Lok was so good at depicting the subtle communalism of the more polished parts of middle class society. When the CBI lady says-'inki community se aajkal bahut IAS nikal rahe hain. Bahut accha hai, Inki community ki image apneaap acchi ho jayegi" it perfectly crystallized

this brand of communal prejudice. I remember a Delhi police cop I met in a train who told me-"it's so good to meet educated Muslims like you". On the surface, these seem innocuous comments, but they all come from a certain prejudiced image of Muslims. An image they never question

And thus they compliment their Muslim interlocutor for being different from the prejudiced image they take for granted. A cruder variation of this same genre is - "you don't seem/talk/think like a Muslim." A lot of communalism priveleged Muslims face is via such 'compliments'.

Then there is the well-intentioned advice of the IAS coaching centre to the Muslim cop. "On politically loaded questions (around Muslims), sound positive and progressive. This is important for someone like you." This line captured the kind of 'good Muslim' you're expected to be

to enter the power structure of the country. Later in the episode the Muslim cop protests to the other cop (at least partly as a reaction to the interview advice)- 'you're expected to keep your head down and follow orders. Not to question anything." All of these moments land

more powerfully than the overt communal scenes of lynching, cops using slurs of 'miyan'/'katua' etc because we are used to seeing that before. It's this all too common subtle communalism of those parts of MC society that considers itself modern that is rarely depicted on screen.