At a luxury high-rise in India, the maids are rioting
Tensions between the country’s rich and poor are mounting
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Annie Gowen.
A mob of angry domestic workers protested outside a luxury high-rise outside India’s capital, New Delhi, on Wednesday, laying bare the deep divisions between the haves and have-nots in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
What led to the protest?
The brawl occurred after a confrontation between maid Johra Bibi and her employer over about two months worth of unpaid wages, according to the maid’s husband, Abdul Sattar. Police said one of the residents at the Mahagun Moderne high-rise where Johra Bibi worked had accused her of stealing. The maid’s family said she was beaten and held prisoner overnight.
Police said that more than 150 maids working in the suburban Noida high-rise set upon the gates because they believed one of their fellow domestic workers was being held inside against her will. The maids forced their way into the apartment complex, throwing stones and leaving broken windows in their wake. Johra Bibi was found in a different flat Wednesday morning.
“Madam said to me, ‘If you try to run away, I’ll throw you in the dust bin. I’ll kill you,’” she said in a whisper, lying on a small cot outside her slum dwelling not far away.
The maid’s employers, in a statement given to the Indian Express newspaper, told a different tale. They said that they had confronted their housecleaner over $150 that had been stolen from the home and told her they had a video of the theft.
She admitted stealing the money, the statement said, and asked that it be deducted from her pay. When they refused, the employers claimed, she ran away.
One of the protesting maids, Haseena Bibi, 28, said that while Johra Bibi’s employer had been abusive, many of the other families treated their help well and that the maids were glad to have their jobs. Now, they feared they might lose them.
A history of class division
Most maids in India work long hours for paltry wages, with little time off. Some state governments have tried in recent years to regularize wages for domestic workers In Rajasthan, for example, they now must be paid at least $87 a month. But many make less than that.
India’s elite have for centuries employed servants, but economic liberalization and the rise of the middle class meant that the number of maids has grown exponentially in recent decades, journalist Tripti Lahiri wrote in a recent book, “Maid in India.” Hundreds of thousands have migrated from villages to India’s major urban centers to tend to the needs of the elite.
But class divisions between household staff and their affluent bosses remain deeply entrenched, Lahiri writes:
“We eat first, they eat later … we live in front, they live in the back, we sit on chairs and they sit on the floor, we drink from glasses and ceramic plates and they from ones made of steel and set aside for them, we call them by their names, they address us by titles …”
