The Maids from Delhi, or a History of an Unsuccessful Project

 
PIIS032150750006273-2-1
DOI10.31857/S032150750006273-2
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Occupation: Chief Research Fellow
Affiliation: Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Journal nameAsia and Africa Today
EditionIssue 9
Pages46-52
Abstract

An Indian house should be poor indeed not to employ household servants (cooks, cleaners, nurses, etc.), primarily low-caste women from backward rural areas who in many cases become the sole breadwinners for their impoverished families, including idle drinking husbands. Their main problem is not only an incredible cheapness of labour and, consequently, a meagre remuneration but, more importantly, discrimination, based upon caste prejudices and traditional purity/pollution concepts. Verbal and physical abuse apart, the employees, especially the nouveau-riches, more often than not treat their maids as third class humans and refuse them even most elementary amenities like toilet and tap water, prohibiting them even to use the chairs, sitting on the floor instead. The paper discusses the theme, citing a real story of “The Maids”, a non-commercial organization in Delhi`s most affluent suburb Gurgaon (recently renamed as Gurugram). The company trained the future maids to manage a modernized rich household and tried to not only guarantee a decent pay for the workers but to protect their human dignity. With this purpose they made the employees sign a detailed contract (not with the maid, significantly, but with the company) guaranteeing the woman a decent pay, limited work hours, access to all amenities, lunch time and day off, etc. It was an attempt to transform a centuries old mode of servant employment to modern service system. Unfortunately, the project failed as the employers were not ready to comply with the company `s demands to pay and treat their servants as service specialists, not as traditionally dependent and humiliated low caste women.

KeywordsIndia, domestic servants, maids, Delhi, Gurgaon, discrimination, purity/pollution, caste, gender, non-commercial organization
Received09.09.2019
Publication date09.09.2019
Number of characters31001
Cite  
100 rub.
When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 2, views: 1321

Readers community rating: votes 0

1. Anderson B. Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour. London and New York, 2000.

2. Fauve-Chamoux Anoinette (ed.). Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity. Understanding the Globalization of Domestic Work, 16th - 21st Centuries. Bern, 2004.

3. Cox R. The Servant Problem: Domestic Employment in a Global Economy. London - New York, 2006.

4. Meerkerk van Nederveen Elise, Neunsinger Silke and Hoerder Dirk. (ed.). Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving Workers. Leiden, 2015.

5. Yurlova E.S. Ot neprikasaemykh k dalitam. Ocherki istorii, ideologii i politiki. M., 2003. (Yurlova E.S. 2003. From the Untouchables to the Dalits. Essays on History, Ideology and Politics. M.) (In Russ.)

6. Lahiri T. Maid in India. Stories of Opportunity and Inequality Within Our Homes. Delhi, 2017.

7. Frøystad K. Master-Servant Relations and the Domestic Reproduction of Caste in Northern India // Ethnos, Vol. 68, № 1, r. 83.

8. Nizami K.A. Sayid Ahmad Khan. Delhi, 1967.

Система Orphus

Loading...
Up