Domestic Disturbance

It’s only April but Mumbai has already recorded a handful of such cases: among them, Puneeta Sukhwani, smothered with a pillow by her maid because the 68-year-old had refused to lend her money; the middle-aged Basak couple, stabbed in suburban Goregaon by their 20-year-old domestic worker who hailed from Sonepat, Haryana, and was furious because the script-writer couple had not helped him get a break in films; a filmmaker’s widow living by herself in Juhu is continuously drugged by her staff who then whisked away jewellery and precious antiques from the house.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says Mumbai tops the list of cases registered under Sections 379 to 382—dealing with crimes committed by domestic workers in homes. An NCRB 2008 report listed 8,904 cases in Mumbai, Delhi followed with 7,272 while Bangalore and Calcutta registered about half that number each. Big city aspirations, exposure to the employer’s lifestyle which often searingly contradicts their own, anger at being refused something and revenge are the common reasons cited for domestic workers turning violent.

“Mumbai police attempted to put in place a system called the society cop, where beat marshals would go from door to door to register both the elderly and their domestic workers, and then visit them regularly,” explains Anil Kumbhare, deputy commissioner, Zone 2. “It was a deterrent but we found that people just wouldn’t cooperate. There’s a functioning helpline now but often there’s no opportunity for people to call when attacked.” In fact, in Oshiwara suburb, those living alone even tell beat policemen to get them new domestic workers because their trusted ones had fled fearing the society cop system.

Often, it starts with petty crimes—stealing lipstick, small cash, food items, booze. Most employers overlook all this until things take a serious turn. While the larger issue is about ill-treatment of domestic workers, the reverse—though less widespread—is as serious. “It’s unhealthy how dependent we are on our staff. I pampered my maid with clothes, fancy toiletries, meals at the mall and even a movie sometimes. I felt good about treating her equally but for small reasons she would threaten to quit. I was so scared that it was always me apologising to her,” says Nidhi Mahajan, a Delhi-based architect and mother of a 3-year-old. An ad agency professional in Calcutta fired her domestic worker of 10 years after he began making lewd gestures towards her. “My parents educated him and never treated us differently. But we had to finally fire him,” she says. He has since threatened revenge.

What could be worse than trusted staff turning rogue during a crisis, as happened with the Kamtes in Pune when the family rushed to Mumbai in the wake of ACP Ashok Kamte’s death in the 26/11 attack; their man friday Jai Prakash robbed the house and fled. Almost two years later, Kamte’s widow Vinita had to go to Bihar to get back the stolen jewellery recovered after Prakash’s arrest.