Theoretical Considerations
Exploitation and Coercion
Domestic Service and the Status Hierarchy of Consuming/Serving Subjects
Normative Violence and Ungrievable Lives
Methods
Name | Age (approximate) | Education | Experience (years) | Experiences of violence |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alpana | 37 | Some school | 30 | Caste-based segregation |
Anjana | 40 | Some school | 25 | Caste-based segregation |
Ashima | 48 | No school | 30 | Physical and sexual violence |
Roli | 25 | No school | 12 | Sexual violence |
Bharati | 52 | Some school | 30 | Caste-based segregation |
Kalpana | 36 | Some school | 25 | Physical violence |
Lakshmi | 36 | No school | 26 | Caste-based segregation |
Mita | 46 | Some school | 30 | Physical violence |
Vinita | 44 | Some school | 25 | Caste-based segregation |
Ahana | 24 | Some school | 8 | Sexual violence |
Rita | 25 | Some school | 12 | Sexual violence |
Sancharia | 16 | Some school | Less than 1 year | Caste-based segregation |
Malati | 35 | Some school | 6 | Caste-based segregation |
Sumitra | 45 | Some school | 13 | Physical violence |
Sushmita | 32 | No school | 15 | Physical violence |
Tulsi | 22 | No school | 10 | Physical violence |
Mangala | 46 | School pass | 10 | Caste-based segregation |
Chameli | 42 | Some school | 20 | Caste-based segregation |
Leela | 40 | Some school | 20 | Caste-based segregation |
Name | Age (approximate) | Education | Profession |
---|---|---|---|
Soma | 35 | Under graduate | Homemaker |
Susmita | 38 | Under graduate | Service |
Brinda | 42 | Under Graduate | Homemaker |
Anita | 35 | Secondary school | Homemaker |
Chabi | 56 | Under graduate | Homemaker |
Koyel | 57 | Under Graduate | Homemaker |
Arati | 63 | Under graduate incomplete | Homemaker |
Suparna | 33 | Under graduate | Homemaker |
Tapasi | 50 | Under graduate | Homemaker |
Jugal Kishori | 72 | Some school | Homemaker-unmarried |
Findings
Ungrievability Through Class-Based Consumption
The violence inflicted by the client is encoded in the class-based norms of consumption and in their contradictions. Middle-class clients are simultaneously expected to spend money to establish their class-based positions and to be thrifty and save for future consumption (Baviskar and Ray 2015). As Butler (2009) observes, conflicting norms can create displays of dominance as is the case with this client. Ashima’s employer’s deployment of violence is both a sign of her class-based domination over Ashima and her desire to enhance her own consumption and status. In this instance, improved consumption of the client and social distinctions are tied to saving money by not paying extra for sweets, a service that Ashima failed to provide. Ashima is approximately 50 years old and has no formal education. Her description of physical violence and abuse involved her experience when she was a 17-year-old girl. At this point in time she was staying in the client’s home and working 16 h a day for a salary of INR 60 per month (USD 1).I made mistakes at times in my work […] Then they shouted at me viciously. […] One day they sent me to market to buy sweets. In that shop, that sweet was not there. So, I brought that sweet from a different shop. The price was higher there. I could not give them back the leftover change. That woman (client) pulled me by my hair and beat me brutally. No one in the house stopped her. I cried a lot that night. I thought that I would never do this work. I thought even if I die of hunger I will not do this work.
Ashima was physically beaten up for small failures to meet the consumption expectations of her client and was thrown out of the house by her client for not getting a recipe right. Her family lived in a village near Kolkata, and when the client threw her out, she did not even know how to return home. She got some help from her fellow service providers, and they helped her to return to her family. However, as an additional layer of exploitation, her client did not pay her for nearly five months of work, and she could not do anything about it. As Raghuram (2005) has argued, these service providers work with no written contracts and payments are made in cash with no records of such transactions.If I broke anything, they wouldn’t spare me. One day dishes fell from my hand. I was beaten badly that day. Again, sometime later, they asked me to bring mustard seeds and to make a paste of that. After I had pressed the mustard seeds, it turned bitter. And they cooked fish curry with that. That day that lady punched me on my chest. She accused, “You bought inferior quality and cheated the rest of the money. Give us back the money quickly.” She punched me viciously. I was not in a condition to speak. She told me, “A lot of expensive fish is wasted, who would pay the money, tor baba debe (your father)?” That lady picked my suitcase and threw it out on the road and asked me to go out from their house at that very moment. I told her, “Inform my father, he will come to get me.” They did not hear me. They pushed me out from their house. They did not even pay me for five months of work. It was an afternoon that time. I did not know the way back home.
Beyond any utilitarian justification in an effort to extract better service, verbal abuse is seen to be necessary by clients to establish their higher-class positions, attain desired levels of consumption, and for the exploitative value extraction process to work effectively. In a way, these encounters between kajer lok and their clients are often laced with anger and dissatisfaction as the two sides find themselves located in a discourse of class that is not of their making (Butler 2014). Waldrop (2004) attributes the middle-class anxiety regarding domestic service workers as arising from crumbling of old rigid status boundaries as also detected by Vikas et al. (2015). In order to maintain their often newly achieved middle-class status, clients need to emphasize imagined distinctions in dress, spaces, objects, speech, and other aspects encoding high/low, clean/dirty, and pure/impure distinctions (Baviskar and Ray 2015; Dickey 2000a; Fernandes 2006). These are old and well-entrenched categories in India, but contemporary consumption-based status anxiety revivifies and amplifies them (Mattila 2011). Middle-class clients believe that the only way to keep their rather tenuous position is by extracting value from lower classes (Baviskar and Ray 2015; Fernandes 2006). Violence by clients also betrays their fear of becoming vulnerable because of the actions of kajer lok. Clients commonly attribute violence to being prompted by negligence on the part of service providers. They believe it becomes necessary to make service providers understand their consumption requirements. As Butler (2014) reminds us, this is a case of clients claiming vulnerability to shore up their privileges.I do get angry with her (kajer lok) sometimes. That’s because she is very moody. On some days, she works very carefully but sometimes she is so negligent that I cannot help but scold her. Sometimes she doesn’t care to wash the garments properly – she will not rinse the detergent from the wet cloths and let it dry. If I am not supervising, she will leave the mopping work half done. It is not possible to be vigilant all the time. I hardly go to the third floor to supervise her work. However, whenever I do so she gets furious [Tokhon tere tere ashe] and starts quarreling with me in a harsh tone. She even threatens me that she will leave the job after Durga Puja so I better start looking for another help. I also retort back that she is free to make her choice; there is no dearth of domestic helps. This has happened quite a number of times. But she didn’t leave. She came back the very next day and stated working normally.
Ungrievability Through Patriarchal Commodification
Tulsi came to Kolkata from Andhra Pradesh in South India along with her mother in search of a livelihood. She is now a 22-year-old, was briefly married before her husband left her, and earns around INR 750 (USD 12.5) per month from her domestic work. Tulsi’s story of domestic violence finds strong resonance across our participants. The patriarchal order is made worse by alcohol consumption of men that ensures that the subaltern women suffer violence both in their domestic and commercial encounters (Joy et al. 2015). As in the case of Tulsi, it is common to see the occupation of domestic service provider being inherited from one generation of women to another, while men in their houses take away for their personal consumption the little money they earn. Such violence against women is encoded in male consumption and normalized. Patriarchy ensures that the violence against women goes unnoticed because it is a common practice. As a result of these family circumstances and patriarchal violence, many of these service providers start working from a very young age which makes them particularly vulnerable to different forms of violence.From my early childhood days, I saw my mother being beaten up by my father. My father worked in a factory, and he was an alcoholic. One day he poured kerosene and set my mother on fire. I do not correctly remember that incident. I was five then. Everybody says that when my mother was burning she hugged me tightly, and my arm and a leg were also burned. Our neighbors admitted us to a hospital, but my father absconded, and he never came back to us. When we recovered, my mother went back to Andhra Pradesh with us, where we had a place to live with our maternal uncle. But we could not stay there for too long, there were lots of problem in my uncle’s house. We had to come back here [to Kolkata] and my mother started working as a kajer lok. Often my elder sister and I went with my mother to help her. As my mother’s face was burnt, she could not get much work. We could hardly buy our rice and sambar (lentil soup) in a day. After that, my mother engaged my elder sister as a kajer lok in 2-3 houses. My elder brother got work in a shop and after that, he worked as an apprentice to a mason. I also went for work with my sister. I helped her in cleaning dishes. I was then 7-8 years old. Since then I am working as a kajer lok.
Ashima almost whispered her account of this experience to us with a strange sense of guilt. Her sense of helplessness and trauma were evident in her behavior even decades after this experience. Despite experiencing sexual assault from a member of her client’s family, she could not afford to leave her job and had to continue to serve for years with this lingering fear. Ashima knew that her clients believed that they owned her as an object of consumption because she was being paid a price for her services. The logics of markets, consumption, and patriarchy also ensured that she could be sexually violated, and some money (INR five in this case) could be doled out to her as a price for that consumer service. Another service provider, Roli, faced similar sexual exploitation,When I first was engaged as a day-night domestic help at that very house, there was a brother of that Boudi (client). He went there every Sunday. He tried to touch me several times. At that time, I was young and was not married. I was afraid of him; I used to get overwhelmed by a strange sense of fear and terror. Whenever I saw that man, I used to hide from him. He called me to give me INR five [about 7 cents] and tried to touch my breasts. Once I also told him, “What are you doing? I am much younger than you.” Then he told me, “You promise me not to disclose this.” He gave me more money. I did not want to take the money. But there was a strange fear, I was not able to say this to anyone of them. I could not speak anything or tell him that I won’t take the money due to a certain sense of fear. That man again did that to me. Yes, he touched my breasts many times. I was not able to accuse him. Whenever I saw him, I got afraid.
Roli’s experience shows that commoditization of her body was not just limited to her clients. A visitor at the client’s home could also show the audacity and knew rather well that an ungrievable entity would not be in a position to lodge a complaint. In most cases, kajer lok’s silence is not a sign of acceptance of the dominant norms or symbolic power of their clients (Bourdieu 1990; Üstüner and Thompson 2012) but rather of their inability to challenge the frames of recognition that their clients deploy. As a result, Roli dismissed the idea of complaining to her client as an exercise in futility. Because of structural conditions of production of consuming/serving subjects shaped by markets and patriarchy, such forms of exploitation of kajer lok continue to unfold in a state of normalization that is marked by silence and lack of moral compunctions. There is possibly a realization by Roli and Ashima that they will be ‘worse-off’ in the absence of such clients (Powell and Zwolinski 2012). However, any moral permissibility of such a state will not only need to overlook structural conditions of exploitation (Preiss 2014) but also specific norms that allow violent exploitation against ungrievable lives to unfold in a normalized state of ellipsis.In Dadu’s (client’s) house, there comes a Dadu’s friend who is younger than Dadu. Once Dadu asked me to give a glass of water to his friend. I went to the kitchen to take water, and then I saw that the friend had also walked to the kitchen with me. I took the glass and tried to hand it over to him, he took the glass and tried to touch my breast. I said nothing but glared at him. No, I never informed Dadu about this incident. After all, he is a male, what can I say to him? After that, whenever that person comes to Dadu’s house, I never go near him.
Ungrievability Through Caste-Based Consumption
Alpana is a married 37-year-old with a son and has a family income of around INR 7500 (125 USD) annually. She lives in her own house and has a steel cupboard, television, fridge, and a cell phone as her major possessions. Similar to the observations made by Vikas et al. (2015), these consumption achievements narrow the distinctions between her and her clients, likely provoking greater status anxiety on her part. Echoing Butler’s idea of derealization, she reports that her clients treat her as an unequal consumer and do not even allow her to use their dishes. The question of caste further adds to these segregations. Koyal, a client, informed us that her kajer lok uses separate dishes,They (clients) gave me tea in a separate cup and also separate my plates. Yes, I felt bad about it. Then I thought as I work as a domestic help they could do this to me. Or was it because I am poor? I really felt bad.
While the Bourdieusian analysis by Vikas et al. (2015) helps to understand some aspects of the functioning of the status hierarchy in our setting, we find Butler’s reading of attempts to appropriate vulnerability particularly helpful for a more complete understanding. Butler (2014) insightfully helps us to see that clients as dominant actors try to appropriate vulnerability by projecting themselves as vulnerable. In this case, we witness vulnerability of an upper caste client to pollution because of the presence of impure lower caste kajer lok. As Douglas (1966, p. 114) observes, “a polluting person is always in the wrong. He has developed some wrong condition or simply crossed some line which should not have been crossed and this displacement unleashes danger for someone.” Koyal refers to several aspects of caste-based segregation to project herself as vulnerable. In the Hindu caste system, upper castes have traditionally denied subordinate castes access to their food, water, and places in which food is prepared (Béteille 1996). Some of these norms have changed in urban settings, in which kajer lok are needed by clients to cook their food or clean their dishes and houses. However, it is common to see different dishes set aside for kajer lok to have tea and food or ask them not to put their mouths on dishes. These consumption norms are based on the prevalent caste-based system of purity and pollution in which the lower castes, to which most of the kajer lok belong, should not allow their saliva to touch any of the dishes used by upper castes (Vikas et al. 2015). It is common to see kajer lok pouring water in their mouths from a distance when they use glasses used by their clients. This is to ensure their saliva does not contact and pollute clients’ dishes (Jaffe and Dürr 2010). It is a form of untouchability in consumption that is commonly experienced by kajer lok. Because of these consumption norms, clients do not feel any moral compunctions in treating kajer lok in a manner that is discriminatory, exploitative, and violent. Again, we see how consumption-based status anxiety conjoins with caste boundaries and indices of dirt and pollution (Dickey 2000a; Harju 2017; Mattila 2011). Scrambling for distinction in an increasingly socially fluid society means reinforcing boundaries through a discourse of pollution and contagion. Choon-Piew (2007) finds similar concerns with symbolic pollution in socially volatile China. There too domestic service workers are seen as a necessary evil and as dirty, uncouth, and polluted.She (kajer lok) has a separate cup for tea. Frankly speaking, in my family, each member has a separate cup for tea. We do not have tea from other person’s cup. That is why her cup was also a separate one from ours.Interviewer: Suppose there is a situation that there are many guests in your house, would you mind having tea from your daughter’s cup?Yes, why not? If situation so demands I will certainly not mind having tea from her cup. She is not an untouchable.Interviewer: In a similar situation would you mind having tea from Guddi’s (kajer lok) cup?Oh my God, no! I will never have tea from her cup. Is she the same as my daughter? She is so dirty. When we used to offer her tea, she didn’t care to wash her hands after sweeping or mopping the floor. She used to take biscuits in the unwashed hands…How can we have tea from the cup of such an unhygienic girl Oh, no, never! [Her face reflected abhorrence]
It is common to see subaltern service providers not getting complete access to homes they work in. When they visit these homes, they are often made to stand at the door or asked to confine their presence to certain parts of houses. They cannot use the elevators in the buildings where their employers live. It is also common to see kajer lok leaving their footwear outside their client homes before entering. This is done to ensure the dirt they carry from their subaltern settings does not pollute the sanctity of clients’ homes. On the other hand, people of the same or higher class are commonly welcomed inside these homes. They are allowed to wear their footwear inside these houses, whereas they are removed at designated religious places. Hence, through consumption and violence of segregation the lives of kajer lok are made ungrievable (Butler 2004a).Everybody looks down upon us. I worked in a household for one year. They did not allow me inside. They asked me to wash utensils in their terrace. If it was raining, then I had had to clean the utensils in the rain. They did not allow me to sweep rooms. One day I was angry, and I told them, “Don’t you think we are humans? Is it possible to work in such a heavy rain?”
Sumitra as an exploitee has accepted her inferior status and does not feel comfortable in crossing the class-based distance. This form of exploitation is internalized and does not lend itself to calculations of worseness or free choice (cf. Powell and Zwolinski 2012). Sumitra’s narrative supports Üstüner and Thompson’s (2012) suggestion that the symbolic domination and habitus reconfiguration of some low cultural capital service workers is premised upon the middle and upper classes norms (Bourdieu 1990). Thus, clients do not often need to actively derealize because kajer lok themselves contribute to the creation of their less worthy lives through the internalization of dominant consumption and caste-based norms (Butler 2004b). Sanchariya, a kajer lok, informed us about a similar situation of normalized violent exploitation through internalization of dominant norms,I never feel bad about not being allowed to sit on a sofa. I suppose this place (floor) is for me. In my initial days, they told me that I was dirty. Just like when they asked me to do something, they always said, “you can touch that after washing your hand.” They also forbade me to sit on the chair. I always sat on the floor. And till now I maintain this habit. No one forbids me now, but I cannot sit on a chair till now. I never dare to sit on their bed. I feel guilty if I sit on their bed.
Sanchariya is a 16-year-old girl with education up to class six and helps her mother who works as a kajer lok. Her family comprised of mother, father, and an elder sister earns only INR 1500 (25 USD) a month and stays in a thatched-roof shanty. Sanchariya is scared of verbal abuse from her client if she is caught sitting on their bed. However, she also believes that as a consumer she is dirty and does not deserve an equal status. Through the exposure to caste-based norms of consumption, she is derealized (Butler 2004a, 2009). And this normative violence leads to the creation of ungrievable life as kajer lok become lesser beings for whom nobody needs to take responsibility.Our client said, “You go to work with the same skirt, don’t clean yourself or maintain proper personal hygiene and without changing you enter my room and sit on my bed. I don’t like this.” Yes, I felt bad that day. But still I go there, and now I do not sit on the bed. I sit on the floor. No, I sit on the floor by myself. I am afraid to sit on the bed. What if they shout at me? No, I have no courage to sit on the master’s bed. I think I am dirty. Because I clean their dirty utensils, after that if I sit in their bed are they going to encourage that? So I never have that courage.
Resistance to Ungrievability
Vinita’s description suggests that marginal positive shifts in levels of exploitation that contributes to making life more worthy are possible. Cooking as a category is more socially exalted compared to cleaning that requires everyday handling of filth and dirt. Cooks are usually treated with more respect as compared to kajer lok who do the cleaning work. Such a shift offers some relief and a sense of freedom that is greatly valued by kajer lok. However, these shifts are within the dominant normative framework and such moves to lesser vulnerability do not necessarily alter normalized violence but may further strengthen it for those who are unable to alter their positions as their lives remain perceived and treated as ungrievable.Now I get more respect by working as a cook than previously when I was working as a housemaid. I can open the fridge to take out food items; I can cook the way I want. Previously when I used to clean utensils people never treated me with respect. They never asked me to sit. I used to do my job and leave. They used to serve me tea in a separate cup as if they used to abhor me. Now they don’t do that. I can eat and drink from the same dish and cup that they use. I am even allowed to sit on their beds. Previously I dared not to do that.
Malati and Archo consider their work humiliating and are ashamed of it. Most kajer lok do not want their daughters to end up as domestic service providers and they would like to see their children pursuing other more respectable professions. Malati is proud of her daughter’s achievement and sees vicarious social mobility through her. As opposed to her, Malati suggests that her daughter is treated with dignity because she is a teacher. In the dominant normative order, manual labor is considered inferior and a teacher is considered exalted. Despite acknowledging the precarity of the lives they live, kajer lok such as Archo and Malati do not engage in a critique of caste, class, and patriarchy and resulting consumption through which their precarity is made possible because they lack the societal support and the means to do so (Jain 2015). In addition, several kajer lok report that helping their children to climb the social ladder makes them more exposed to the market as they usually need to take out loans for their children in order to be able to invest in them. Archo took loans from many of her middle-class clients to pay the dowry for her daughter’s wedding. Similarly, Leela told us,My daughter teaches children. She doesn’t have to scrape utensils at other people’s houses to earn her living. And I pray to God, that she never has to do it in her entire life. It is so humiliating. I am proud that my daughter has a job that is not looked down upon by the society. She has a job that is honored by the society. She herself is respected by the society… That is why I have been telling my younger daughter to continue her studies, so she can do something that is respectable and not frowned upon by the society.
Hence, while some possibilities exist for the children of kajer lok to socially migrate upwards through education or marriage such moves often come with a price for kajer lok themselves. They become even more dependent on the market, in particular on people providing loans, which can push them further into the abyss of debt and subordination (Dickey 2016; International Labor Organization 2015).I have taken loans from people for my daughter’s marriage. I have a huge debt to clear. I don’t feel good thinking about all these, but what can I do, I had to get my daughter married, I couldn’t let her sit at home at her age. Whatever money I could borrow, I borrowed and got my daughter married. Now the headache is how I need to return the money I borrowed.
While we do not rule out kindness, such acts of support are often triggered by the dependence of clients on kajer lok. Clients referred to the market situation arguing that while a surplus supply of kajer lok exists, it is difficult to find a kajer lok who is good and trustworthy. Therefore, clients argue that it is important to protect the investment they have made in their kajer lok. Hence, although Shuki to some extent is acknowledged as a subject in the kinder frames of recognition she refers to, this recognition is rarely as an equal being (Butler 2005b). Karabi, a 72-year-old homemaker informed us why she took good care of her kajer lok:The lady (client) acts as if that’s the end of the world. First, she takes me to the doctor. She takes a leave from her job and stays with me and makes me do exactly as the doctor advices. If I ever fall sick, I am usually fit by a couple of days due to the care that the family bestows on me.
For Karbi and other clients instrumental and market-based reasons shaped the display of kindness and support toward their kajer lok in situations of need. Hence, these clients do not engage in a social critique of the dominant norms. Such a critique of norms could undermine the position of power that these norms grant to consumers of domestic service. In addition, clients seem to be lacking the kind of reflexivity that such a critique is dependent on (Butler 2005). Some kajer lok saw through this instrumental kindness of clients. For example, Malati, a widow of age 35 and a mother of two daughters and one son between 20 and 15 years old, told us,How can I find a maid as honest as she is? Many kajer lok have worked in my house. Some used to steal. But she is very trustworthy. Besides, nowadays it is very difficult to find a full-time maid.
Hence, Malati sees maids such as her serving as a necessary evil for clients—the clients cannot live without her as they do not want to clean their dishes and do other demeaning work. In most cases, clients would like to keep kajer lok at a distance and not let their polluting influence inside their houses without such a necessity. For instance, a client contemptuously told us how he hates to see his kajer lok inside his kitchen and prefers to pay her money to go outside to eat her lunch. Hence, this apparent act of kindness of giving her money for a meal is laced with discrimination and exclusion that the normative order allows. Dickey (2000a) and Ray and Qayum (2009) emphasize that part of the historic decline of kindness and authority is due to the commercialization of servant relationships and shifting from male employment for life to female employment ‘part time’ in multiple households as the middle class move into high rises without maid’s quarters. Even when kindness is extended and servants are treated as family members, Dickey (2000a) found that employers who extended such kindness worried that they were being exploited by servants, who took advantage and asked for more.Nobody usually uses any harsh words with me and are very polite in their behavior toward me. But I am not stupid. I understand that they actually patronize me with their smooth talk and calm behavior. That they actually point out to me by such polite behavior that they are above me in the social hierarchy, and would never have spoken to me if they hadn’t had this need of me. These aspects of behavior by these people actually want to make me scream.