Apropos of your cover story Inside Slave City (Apr 23), restricting the problem to the middle class alone is like taking down easy targets. The class above the middle can afford iron curtains: they are the ones who don’t even hesitate to kill and dump their hapless servants. Such brown sahebs are aplenty. And what about the landed jagirdars, the fake babas, the unscrupulous industrialists etc who specialise in ‘bonded labour’? It’s a fact of life, we Indians excel at exploiting the weak and the poor. When I see these ladies shouting on TV about “soft” subjects like maids, I get the feeling they are the worst exploiters. For they cannot do without their maids, and they probably haggle over each penny that they pay them.
M.L. Gupta, Delhi
Homo hierarchus, as Dumont puts it, that is what we Indians are. No amount of patriotic outrage can absolve us of this charge. As Dr Ambedkar pointed out, the utter lack of equality is the Great Tradition of India.
Marudamuthu, Chennai
It’s part of the Indian character, we have no compassion, nor do we value human life as such. And anyway, we have that biggest shield, religion, working for us.
Kel Shorey, Glasgow
There is something rotten in the heart of our middle class. On my India visits, I generally try to minimise my contact with this so-called educated lot. I prefer the rickshawallahs, boatmen etc, they are much more genuine.
Pradip Singh, Stafford, UK
It’s the absence of an institutional mechanism to regulate the activities of these ‘placement agencies’ which has led us to this pass. Combined with our dunderhead social welfare boards and the hafta police, it’s a recipe for disaster.
A.K. Saxena, Delhi
You guys are always on this high pedestal. I’d like to know how the domestic helps working in the homes of various Outlook staffers are faring. Are they treated fairly, are they paid adequately, do they get vacations and casual leave?
Ramki, Delhi
Just goes to show we are a dog-eat-lesser dog society. The netas and the elite exploit the middle classes, they in turn wreak havoc on the less fortunate. The irony is that during the Raj when bonded labour had official sanction, the Brits still treated Indians better than how 21st century desis treat their countrymen today.
Pankaj Vaishnavi, London
This is a manifestation of how we are evolving as ‘modern people’, living in luxury at the cost of fellow humans. Cannibals don’t turn modern just by using forks and spoons.
A. Sharma, Thakurdwara, HP
As someone working in the field of bonded labour, I am glad for the article. It spoke to the heart of the issue—workers must enjoy every right granted to citizens and laws must ensure they are protected from such brutal injustice.
Liani, Chennai
I wonder if it’s simply the case that such outrage now has a chance of getting media attention whereas 25 years ago it wouldn’t have gotten a second look. Also, is a gender factor working here? Poor women have fewer job opportunities and are hence more vulnerable to domestic abuse.
Vivek S., New Haven, US
Our society is not led by right, but by might. We are not civilised enough for Edgar Allen Poe’s dictum, “Fearless to the strong, humble to the weak”.
V. Tholibangan, on e-mail
Your story was excellent, we at Nirmana salute you for this coverage. To be frank, we had tears in our eyes.
Subhash Bhatnagar, Delhi
I don’t think there exists another culture so capable of discrimination as our “5,000-year-old legacy”. That said, it’s now a pan-South Asian thing, cutting across all barriers—anyone who has the remotest chance to create a hierarchy, even if for a fleeting moment, does so and discriminates on that basis, even if for a moment in time.
Arun M., Bangalore
Our maid’s four-year-old son who studies in a Colaba school (which was visited by US president Obama and his wife) just brought his report card. A score of 96%. Everything else may remain unequal, but give a child a good education and he’ll get an equal shot at life.
Ashok Lal, Mumbai
56 D
Sorry about the typo : that should read ANY JOB, FOR THAT MATTER, IS INHUMAN TO THE EMPLOYEE AND FAVOURABLE TO THE EMPLOYER.
This article has ASSUMED that 'house-maids are treated shabbily'. And some readers have devoured that assumption without question.
However, one needs to introspect. ANY JOB, FOR THAT MATTER, IS INHUMAN TO THE EMPLOYEE AND FAVOURABLE TO THE EMPLOYEE.
But it is the MARKET FORCES that eventually determine 'equality' here. If someone does not WANT to do a job, he/she is free to choose not to do it.
However, these 'victims' too, have classes, it seems. A hard working male labourer working in the hot sun, for eg., does not have a voice in the media as a woman in a home.
For the leftists and anti-male chauvinists, this media assumption seems unquestionable.
"What is it that makes the Indian middle class treat their domestic help with such derision and abuse?"
Our culture and not to forget we have practised for 5000+ years as we so fondly like to remind ourselves and the world. In old times/rural-areas there was many times a deeply feudal but a paternalistic mai-baap relationship between the served and the server. In new urban-times that paternalism is also lost, nothing to replace it and we are left with deeply feudal practices and horrendous ill-treatment/discriminatin day-in day-out. BTW, we all do it - everyday - day-in day-out - may be not to our maid/servant but to someone who is just expected to exist only to serve us, period.
Our ability to discriminate based on minute (micron level) heirarchies is legendary - I don't think there there exists another culture so capable at this (South African apartheid was childs play compared to what we are capable of). we keep creating new and improved heirarchies everyday. When we meet someone - almost the instinctive first thing we do is arrange them in a heirarchy above or below us and then it starts - language, body language, everything about the interaction determined by the heirarchy. If there was a Nobel prize for the "art of discrimnation" we would be "lifetime receipients" of it. We can easily convince ourselves without remorse (i.e., justifiable discrimination) that someone else is just so below us that they are practically non-human/sub-human. BTW, I don't think it is about the middle class though. It is a pan-South Asian thing - cuts across caste (except for may be those truly at the just the bottom pit), class, language, region, religion - anyone who gets the remotest chance to create a heirarchy even if for a fleeting moment creates one and discriminates on that basis, even if for a moment in time.
As a corrolary, that is why we feel discriminated so very easily too and get all hot and prickly about it.
As they say, the most sublime and the most horrendous all exists within us. Solutions - practically none - as we like to believe we are great and like that ONLY (of course - without NO and/or ONLY we couldn't be desis would we?).
While cases of house-hold abuse are rampant, the fact that hardly anyone at all gives basic employee rights to maids is also shocking. How many of us give them monthly or even weekly offs? Do we ensure that we give them a sustainable raise periodically? I am not even going into PF and pension benefits, just talking of basic HR practices that should be followed. If we as employess expect so much from organisations we work for, why should we behave differently when somebody else expects that from us? Are most of us hypocrites?
It's time now that "Outlook" at least gives attention to the cases of Afreen and Falak who were victimised and battered to death by their own father.It is hopeless to expect anything from the government that they can do anything genuine for the downtrodden children in the country and curb the issues of social discrimination and rampant illegal female infanticide despite lofty promises."Outlook" might win millions of hearts if it allows some space to highlight that to bring a revolution.
49 D
Why the feminist attitude? Dont boys need protection equally too ( that too in more risky jobs )?
I wish this trade-union mentality of women was applied with equal force to the local chai-dhabba boys too. They too can ask to be treated better with pay and education. Males, after all, are the primary contributors to any society, and no evil force on earth can change that fact anytime in the future.
Most of the problem will go if the law works. Anyone who has employed a girl/boy less than 18 should be heavily fined and detained. There should be an emergency phone number for all types of domestic violence.
In any case these lil girls who work as domestic help are untrained and have no clue how to look after children or cook clean etc. Most people train them, feed them and are quite nice to them as they depend on them.
Creating awareness will change the mindset.
It is true that master-slave mindset is integral part Indian culture. While victims are predominantly lower castes, every caste and class is culprit. But I doubt widespread abuse domenstic servants as this article suggests. It was common to see minors employed as live-in servants couple of decades ago but not anymore.
But the issue is very much alive. I am glad to see main stream media taking interest.
While these stories of abuse (and the employment of child labor in general) make for sorry reading I wonder if the trend claimed in the article is actually true (i.e. that abuse is getting worse). I wonder if it simply the case that such cases now have some (albeit small) chance of actually getting media attention whereas 25 years ago it would never have gotten a second look by the media (or anyone else for that matter). I know that this is annecdotal but my impression is that (at least in places like Chandigarh) the context of domestic workers has changed quite dramatically (and largely for the better) over the past 25 years. In short, whereas when I was a child the relationship between domestic help and their employers was one of the 'household' and explicitly expressed in the language of, for lack of a better word, 'lordship' (i.e. sahib, memsahib and the like) nowadays the relationship is much more of a straightforward employer-employee one and expressed in the standard language of Indian kinship (i.e. uncle, aunty, didi etc.) The sense I get travelling back to India periodically is that this shift constitutes a net gain for the domestic staffers as does the sense that many more of the poor seem to think that they have employment opportunities beyond that of domestic work. I also wonder if there is gender factor here: that is that poor women may have fewer employment opportunities beyond domestic work and so are more vulnerable to abuse. Presumably, as economic opportunities for the poor increase domestic workers will be able to demand better working conditions and therefore make such abusive working conditions less common.
The heading of the article is completely wrong:
What is it that makes the Indian middle class treat their domestic help with such derision and abuse?
Please note that any kind of mis treatment of a domestic help cannot be done by the middle class simply because they are too afraid to " moooh lagana" with the domestic help
On the other hand the middle class is afraid of the domestic helps simply because they cannot live without them
Unlike 20 years ago when the typical housewife used to be burdened with the tasks of cleaning the house, dishes and washing clothes, these days the educated women are demanding that they be not treated as maids by their husbands.
The only thing the middle class complain about domestic help is simply that a domestic help does not clean the clothes or dishes at work in the same way as she does in her own house.
They complain that domestic helps work like typical government employees
To all those who are angry with the way domestic helps are treated in india ,let me say this - Instead of Cursing darkness, try to find a candle to light.
Let me explain - The problem faced by domestic helps in India has to do with some simple truths 1) Absence of skills among the helps which forces them and ties them to do this sort of work for every 2) Absence of social security for those helps and infact for those 90% who work in unorganized sector.
So why dont we tackle both these problems head on. Institute a comprehensive social security (in place of faulty NREGA) which ensures that every adult who has worked in some unorganized sector for some minimum years and everyadult who is of minimum age (30) gets some kind of unemployment pension for say 4-6 months a year.
Then of course a massive investment in vocational education targeting such segments of society will help- right now we are talkingof huge population at same time many businessmen and industrialists are telling about huge lack of skills among young Indians. We have entire new areas like beauty care, personal care,nursing etc etc opening up. Why dont we get to train our domestic helps in these skills?
Agreed all this needs lot of money. How do we find them ?Here is a clue - India spends 3 lakh crore rs on fuel, food and fertilizer subsidy and except food subsidy, the remaning actually benefits the well off. So why cant that be pruned?
And 30000 crore spent on Air India is a utter waste, scrap it first.
And only 3-4% of Indians pay taxes. How about making the income tax burden spread to say atleast 15% of Indians? That means a quadrapuling of income tax revenues.
And one more - how about a scheme where employers of full time domestic helps are made to open a PPF account for their helps and contribute say Rs 100-200 pm. Let that be given tax breaks and maybe the masters who do that be given some benefits too (cheaper home/car loans). End result is more responsible employers who treat their helps fairly.
Now if only the Saba Naqvis, Neelabh mishras and madhavi tatas of outlook given such useful suggestions,one would have appreciated.
But then I am expecting too much from Outlook, which isjust another MSM indulging in rabble rousing than in finding concrete solutions to problems...
Why talk about politicians dividing people and rabble rousing ? Even so called progressive liberal media does it...
Where are all the proud hindus, muslims, sikhs, christians who think religion is great now? They are too busy to care about human rights when they are making so much money and acquiring power through religion
The word is 'help'.It is a summon for rescue and relief.It is a call of request.The relatively easy availability of domestic helps induces their prosperous employers to take them for a ride.Their vulnerability comes to fore while doing chores as they are often unlettered.It is important to usher in a regime of fair deal for domestic helps.Cases of reported violence against them should be dealt with firm hand.
While all my heart felt sympathy goes for the domestic helps who goes through such inhumanly act by the employers. I wish to put some light on the employers who goes through much agony while they keep a domestic help.
I agree with article 100%; an exception to it would be only 1%. JUstice Katju was right in commenting about the 90% of Indian middle class as selfish and fools.
I see a lot of comments from Anwar and 'Whats in a Name' has been removed for violation of Website Policy; but could they rephrase and post their comments, so that rest of us could know what's the slanging match was all about!!
6 D Anwaar,
Since you bring up the issue of rape ( dalit or otherwise ) how do you see the fact that 75% of rape accusations in this country are proven by courts to be false - raising the issue of the truth of the 'convictions'.
25 D
The media in India is anti-male and will hyper report any crime a woman accuses a man off. This is in order to brain wash the public, goad the police and pressurise the judiciary ( including male-folk ) into an ever increasing anti-male hate.
Cannibals don't become modern if they start using forks and spoons. Indians can't become modern if they start using latest gadgets. Modernity is a state of mind, an understanding of human values, an empathy for those who are in need, believing you won't do to other that you can't do to yourself.
The inhuman treatment of domestic helps by parvenu, so called modern people is a manifestation how we are evolving as humans where consumerism means living in luxury at the cost of fellow humans. The doctor couple who locked up 14 year domestic help while vacationing in Thailand, had a 11 year old son. How about someone does that to their own son what they did to the 14 year old girl.
Anyways, a couple on vacation in Pattaya hardly makes sense. We can treat this case and the couple as cannibalism.
"candle-light dinners" > candle-light vigils
Just goes on to show that India is (and has always been) a dog-eats-dog society, where the political/economic elite routinely exploit the middle classes, and the middle classes in turn wreak havoc on those with even less power and access to resources to defend themselves. And given the sheer scale of economic inequality, pathetic law enforcement and an endemically corrupt and over-burdened justice system, one can always find someone less powerful to abuse without having to pay a commensurate price for it.
The issue isn't simply limited to domestic helps. It is also true of the underclass that provides the human fodder for the mill of domestic servitude. Routine apathy (at best) and wilful exploitation (at worst) of hundreds of millions of individuals that constitute the Indian economic underclass is rife in India's cities. A visit to any of India's "shining" metros can bear this observation out. The squalor that this mass of humanity is condemned to live in, the numerous indignities they face daily and the sheer apathy their existence is met with from the rest (who are busy arranging Facebook campaigns and candle-light dinners for some rich guy who just died at the hands of an even richer and more politically connected guy), is apparent to anyone who's willing to see it.
The irony is that during the Raj when bonded labour had official sanction in India, the British foreigners arguably treated Indians better than how 21st century Indians routinely treat their own countrymen today.
I am in a little dilemma here; the very subject is very much valid and need immediate attention; but other side the language used this article is outrageous and sub-standard.
what the article description line say: "What is it that makes the Indian middle class treat their domestic help with such derision and abuse?" What non-sense is that. What do you mean by "Indian middle class"? It is almost 30-40 Crore (300-400 million) people we are talking about.
These JNU type brain washed left loonies can fall any depth in self-loathing. I wonder, did Marx say any such thing about middle-class, which these lunatics must follow religiously?
This is administrative failure, you should catch your beloved PC first for not implementing the Police reform.
As in any domestic violence, what the psychologist suggest that once the first incident of violence is not detected and neutralized, this habit can spiral out of control. Who is suppose to detect that? The administration; and they are failing. Where is the database, since all such hires are suppose to be recorded and continuously watched.
Beating whole middle-class for the crime of few is disgusting and lazy journalism. In my own family I have experience when domestic help (more like a family member) sobbing good bye, when we had to move and she couldn't. And we too are that middle-class.
Transformation of joint family culture to a nucleus one coupled with job-career aspirations by the husband-wife duo, have resulted in engaging a domestic help by compulsion. And thus they proceed to an extent of employ and retain the helps by all means. Taking advantage of the demands, an organized plethora of the placement agencies have mushroomed all over the metro cities which lure the poor mainly from Jharkhand and Assam. Urban anonymity and social disconnect further prevent the households to interact with their neighbours and nobody then gets to know about the happenings next door thus the ill-treatment by the employers continue to remain un-noticed. The government therefore needs to assign the job of making periodic checks of such households, employing a full-time domestic help, male or female, to the respective police stations
domestic helps Outlook India : Inside Slave City What is it that makes the Indian middle class treat their domestic help with such derision and abuse?
The unethical practice of abusing domestic helps,sometimes minor, could ,to a large extent,be attributed to absence of institutional mechanism to regulate the activities of un-registered "placement agencies" fast mushrooming all over the country.The agencies get children smuggled ,mostly from Jhaarkhand and Orissa through organised rackets with the help of touts.The "minors" are passed off as "majors" by forged certificates. Girls are sometimes diverted to the oldest profession. Huge exploitation accompanied by huge profits by agencies. The Police get regular haftas and something more.Guess.
Against this background,blaming the nouveau riche middle class alone is telling half-the-truth.There is something more than meets the eye.An organised racket with all-India ramifications engaging hundreds of touts for exploiting the poor tribals.The handsomely paid arm-chair advisors, social welfare boards and the sociologists have all failed in providing their expert advice to the laid-back authorities.
A K SAXENA (A retired civil servant)
Homo hierarchichus--that is what we Indians are, as Dumont says. No amount of patriotic outrage can absolve us of this charge.
In case you fly into a rage at the Frenchman's audacity, let me remind you that it was Doctor Ambedkar who pointed out the utter lack of the value of Equality that is the hallmark of the Great Tradition of India. This he did long before Dumont who as far as I know has strangely ignored the foremost critic of the Indian psyche.
This lies at the very root of the kind of behavior on the part of the prosperous and educated middle classes of India.
Let us dare to face the bitter truth first in order to cleanse ourselves.
“It is another way of achieving solace – using weaker people’s ‘QUALM’ to apply as ‘BALM’ on own ‘Wounds of Frustration’.”
@@@The media continues to hyperreport any crime committed against women. @@@Male Unblocked
You are right to a great extent. There is another side to the coin of domestic helps and related problems. What about domestic helps (which is a euphemistic word which meant a maid servant or servant) killing the patrons or masters and walking away with cash? The situation has come to such a stage that Police is advising all householders to employ domestic helps only after submitting a photograph and bio-data in police station.
My friend's parents’ house was completely looted by the time they returned from a marriage party. Domestic help brought an auto trolley to carry the suitcases and to help her six or seven other men came inside to loot or to break open an Almarah.
I am not saying there is no exploitation of domestic helps. Upper middle class, neo-rich or affluent people who employ an in-house maid or live-in maid servant have been involved more in these types of cases than ordinary middle class who could afford to employ only a part time domestic help for few hours in a day.
All police stations should be instructed to keep a record, periodic check of households in their respective areas who employ domestic helps. What about their absence to work for almost every alternative day?
In cities like Hyderabad a part time (about 3 to 4 hours morning and evening put together) domestic help demands about 3000 rupees along with breakfast and tea. There are many areas in the city that have to give more than this. In cities like Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai the rates for domestic work is very high.
About an in-house full time domestic helps, the payments are defintely high, but there also many incidents of murder of owners of the house ,generally the lonely ,old couple by domestic helps. A full time domestic help , if employed must be recorded by police or any other organisation which shall be helpful to both. It has been found that in majority cases, a full time domestic helps are young and her/his parents are known to the employers.
Irrelevant,
>> explain how your injection of "dalit" qualification was relevant to the article.
Why is the word Dalit so objectionable to you? You use the word Mullah in almost every comment that you write. Do you know that despite under-reporting and under-recording of atrocities against Dalits in TN, the conviction rates in crimes against Dalits stood as low as 5 per cent; and at 5.8 per cent conviction in Dalit rapes, with acquittals at 95 per cent?
>> Now, please explain how your injection of "dalit" qualification was relevant to the article
The only "explanation" you shall receive shall be some more name calling.
>> "Just type "Dalit rape" in the Google bar and see how many hits you get!" - Anwaar
I tried to make some sense of your obsession with religion, caste and creed. I followed your stupid advice and this is what I got:
Googled "dalit rape": about 581,000 results Googled "non dalit rape": about 561,000 results Googled "muslim rape": about 37,900,000 results Googled "dinosaur rape": about 2,860,000 results Googled "hindu rape": about 12,500,000 results
Now, please explain how your injection of "dalit" qualification was relevant to the article.
This is part of Indian character! And we should be all ashamed of it. We Indians have no compassion and do not value "human life" as such. We always try to exploit the weaker sections of the society. Religion is the biggest shield that we go for it and that does immense harm to the weaker section of the society.
Mahatma Gandhi lamented the heartlessness of the Indian middle class as far back as in 1920s. The rising prosperity and the associated escalation in greed have only made the situation worse.
There is something rotten right in the heart of our middle class. On my visits to India, I generally try to minimise my contact with the so called educated lot. I prefer richsawallahs, boatmen - they are much more genuine.
This survey is too restricted. It talks of the "middle class" only. It is not clear whether the sample includes cases across all religious groups. The class above "middle" don't even provide information- they can kill such hapless people and dump their body by the road side in the night. Hundreds of such bodies are found but neither accounted nor covered by the media which devotes more time on fraudesters like fake Baba or Fakir. Then, there are religious groups that have bonded labour, whose brains have been damaged and then trained to do only their biddings. Such Jagirdars, sahabs and Nawabs are aplenty. Then is the traffic in the name of adoption. Who pays these untrained unskilled hands at the rate of minimum wages for unskilled labour? They are exploited brutally because these employers, who profess a scientific temperament and are highly educated high earning individuals, have killed their conscience. Wherefrom do you learn human behaviour? Either from good sanskars, with strong religious virtues or the law. The law in practice is not only an ass but an ass with all capitals ASS.These poor people are employed because they create no fear of retaliation. No employer employs any maid betraying the slighest courage to answer back or harm. We Indians are good at exploiting the poor and hitting the weak. We have no courage of conviction to do justice to all kinds of men and women. When I see in the electronic and print media, ladies shouting at the top of their voice on "soft" subjects like the maids, I have a feeling that they are the worst exploiters, for they will not be able to go about their jobs without the maid, to whom they don't pay even the minimum daily wage fixed under the law for fixed hours and overtime for extra hours, which the worker may refuse to do. A maid can't be a substitute for the householder, mother, wife, daughter-in-law etc. Ask yourself an honest question: are you a law abiding Indian?
>> "Several young Dalit girls have been raped." - Anwaar
Jokers like you cannot desist from popping caste or religion even on unconnected articles/ debates. They were raped because they were girls/ women, unwittingly serving a monster. What has it got to do with her being a dalit?
While it is true that we abuse the domestic helps, one must remember that many of the cases are fabricated/ exaggerated when the master-servant relationship goes sour.
It should be made mandatory to hire domestic help only through recognized agencies so that the records of both the master and help can be maintained. Police will also have ample precendent records in case of crimes or disputes. This will also curb child labour, the worst outcome of this practice
Otherwise, this has been a mutually-beneficial and symbiotic practice, that can be further streamlined with few legal tweaks.
They are 2 kinds of domestic helps - the ones who attend to several houses doing daily chores of houses and the second kind who are stay at home helps.
The most pathetic situation is of stay at home domestic helps. They stay with the family 24/7 and are made to work and be 'on duty' all through day and night. This itself is degrading to any human and also against all labour laws. Such helps are mostly subjected domestic abuses as the employer considers them thier property. Most of them dont have a voice as they are often employed far away from their families.
The government should ban the second kind of helps. But this will never happen.Check out the govt banglows with attached 'servant quarters' The elite of India cannot survive without them and they always have middle class to blame for 'atrocities'
I agree with Ramki. If the media goes on kicking the middle class it won't help. For this case at least, most from the middle class cannot afford to have a domestic help.
I dare outlook to publish how many of outlook's journalissts/editors employ domestic servants and how many of them have pet dogs. How much they spend on doemstic helps and how much they spend on their dogs ?
We all are sinners. Much hated US is not anymore continuing slave trades. In india it is going in full swing. Let us think about what we are doing before blaming the politicians for each and every thing.
Indians are treating very bad manners to domestic servants because of our rigid caste system.From million years upper caste think lower caste as a slave must treat them just like domestic animal..
Outlook has to be congratulated for picking domestic servants for cover story. We have been reading a lot about their psychological and physical abuse. Several young Dalit girls have been raped.
There have been instances of Indian housemaids, who have been brought to the United States by some Indian families, being abused, kept confined in the house as prisoners and being underpaid. Some of them have sued their employers in court and have won large settlements.
The plight of domestic servants must be improved through both governmental and non-governmental interventions. They must be treated humanely and justly.
PF HS DIMPLE >> And, only OUTLOOK can do it, not any India Today or something!
I would agree with your statement had outlook done a survey of domestic helps/servants employed in the households of those "holier than thou" writers of Outlook such as Neelabh Mishra or Saba Naqvi.
Or maybe how about this - ? The Rahejas are the owners of Outlook right? How many domestic helps are employed in the household of rahejas? How are they faring? How are they treated? How about a brutally honest survey of them ?
And just to clarify, I belong to a large silent majority of indian middle class who simply cannot afford to have a domestic servant. We folks simply share the household work and get a bit of work done through modern appliances (which for all practical purposes means washing machine, since cleaning the home and vessels still has to be done manually). I am not alone -millions of middle class Indians,who are not well connected (like Neelabh Mishras and saba naqvis) and fighting a daily battle against inflation with zero social security , we simply dont have any domestic helps of any kind. But then outlook will never get to hear from us folks, since they have so agenda to build by hearing our case.
WILL OUTLOOK FIRST DARE TO MAKE A SURVEY OF HOW THE DOMESTIC HELPS WHO WORK IN THE HOUSEHOLDS OF VARIOUS OUTLOOK WRITERS ARE FARING? ARE THEY TREATED FAIRLY AND ARE THEY PAID ADEQUATELY, AND ARE THEY GIVEN AMPLE VACATION AND CASUAL LEAVE?
COMEON OUTLOOK, YOU ARE ALWAYS READY TO PREACH OTHERS ON A HIGH PEDESTAL BUT WE THE PUBLIC WANT TO KNOW HOW YOUR OWN FOLKS FARE? HOW DO SABA NAQVIS, DOLA MITRAS, NEELABH MISHRAS AND MADHAVI TATAS TREAT THEIR OWN DOMESTIC SERVANTS? OR DO THEY DO THEIR OWN HOUSEHOLD WORK? LET US FIRST HEAR FROM YOU "HOLIER THAN THOU FOLKS"..
The media continues to hyperreport any crime committed against women.
In the case of rape, the courts found 75% of rape accusations to be false ( raising the possibility that 75% of convictions are false too )
If this trend of villification of those employing domestic staff continues ( the National Commission for Women already wants a HUGE pay hike for them ), then this too will settle into false accusations, pro-active laws, extortion and possibly false convictions too.
Is this what the anti-male media wants to happen?
And, it happens only in India, because we have albeit entered the 21st century, but are unable to forgo colonial or feudal culture, which we have been victims of, for so many years, first during the Imperialism of various dynasties and then Mughals and then of British Raj, and now, when we have money, we want to impose same imperialistic tendencies again. Phew! this explains why most of Indian ladies are victims of obesity and are unhealthy, as they depend upon domestic helps for everything. And, the 'poor' helps, they are treated worse than animals, their dogs/bitches are their pets, which are fed on delicious diet, while the helps are maltreated, underpaid and often exploited.
I solute Outlook for their initiative to throw light on this aspect of Indian life. And, only OUTLOOK can do it, not any India Today or something!
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a. Comments once posted can only be deleted at the discretion of outlookindia.com b. The comments reflect the views of the authors and not of outlookindia.com c. outlookindia.com is not responsible in any manner whatsoever for the way search engines cache or display these comments d. Please therefore take due caution before you post any comments as your words could potentially be used against you
10. We have an online thread for our comments policy: http://blog.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?ddm=10&pid=1669&eid=5
You are welcome to post your suggestions here or in case you have a specific issue, to directly email us at Mail AT outlookindia DOT com with the subject header COMPLAINT