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हिंदी
हिंदी

Domestic Workers Narrative -Photo Story

By Tanya Maheshwari

India’s suburbs have witnessed a residential construction boom over the last few years, often through land acquisition by the state, which was handed over to private builders. This, in turn, has led to many condominium complexes and townships being built in the suburbs, with forevermore coming up. These complexes essentially function in similar ways; multiple towers with apartment units that are individually owned, with a range of common spaces and amenities for the residents. They usually boast a luxurious clubhouse, pools, gyms, and several gardens between different buildings. Most often, grocery shops, salons, bakeries, and even doctors’ clinics are inside the premises. Unambiguously, they function like mini republics of their own.

However, extensive and varied labour goes into keeping these complexes running, such as housekeeping, gardening, security, waste collection, etc. Several services, for instance, waste collection and disposal and security are handled by the builders or contracted out to an agency, which has its own labour force with its own caste dynamics and land displacement history. However, services like domestic work or car cleaning are solicited at the private unit/household level. While there will certainly be overlaps in these various workers’ access, mobility, and treatment, certain specificities also need contextual inquiries. The ambit of this piece is limited to the figure of the domestic worker, and even within that, it is non-exhaustive. This piece is particularly interested in the relationship the body of the domestic worker has with the master body of modern living.

Domestic workers perform (grossly underpaid) reproductive labour1 for individual household units within these gated complexes and, most often, are from lower caste, lower class, religious minority, and migrant backgrounds. This piece also primarily takes into consideration workers who are not ‘live-in maids’, that is, they do not reside in the household they work in, and it only briefly considers workers who live in the households. Those too, require their specific inquiry.

This piece is concerned primarily with workers who come into the gated complexes to work within a household unit on a daily basis, and how their spatio-temporal being is affected in various ways by the infrastructure within the larger complex. These include but aren’t limited to, segregated elevators, CCTV surveillance, resident solidarity (which is strengthened by community management apps and instant communication platforms like WhatsApp), and much more, which remains to be explored, reported on, and written about.

This piece isn’t only interested in suggesting that workers are surveilled; that much is true. It is interested in understanding extant and evolving mechanisms with which surveillance plays out, and how it affects their mobility in their workplace. It wants to explore how only certain aspects of their labour are formalised, certain parts of their labour made abstract, and how the idea of their workplace can shrink and expand as per the whims and fancies of the residents. All of this adds to the ambivalence surrounding the figure of the domestic worker, and consequently, has effects on workers and their very existence. Lastly, there are moments of camaraderie, leisure, and rest at the end of the workday, but at a cost.

Primary reporting for this piece has taken place in Noida and Gurgaon in Delhi NCR.

1 Reproductive labour is either unpaid or remunerated work that enables the ‘workforce’ to be able to go to work (such as cooking, cleaning, laundry)

Gated complexes, high-rises, or townships are now an integral part of the ‘New India’2

These complexes, developed by builder corporations, boast amenities like salons, pharmacies, grocery stores, and clinics, and even manage services such as waste collection and sewage. They are cities within themselves.

2 In How Crazy Is Your Maid: Domestic Work in the New India, Sreela Sarkar writes of the “New India” as signifyings the rise of an urban middle class reliant on domestic workers. For the context of this piece ,we focus on the dynamic underscoring class and caste divides, highlighting domestic workers’ marginalisation within a modernising, consumer-driven society. Sarkar claims that it is important to understand how the figure of the domestic worker has evolved within this context of accelerated class mobility

All but one service is excluded from these offerings: domestic work.3

3 For services like cooking, cleaning, laundry, dusting etc. domestic workers are employed at the private household level.

Apart from requests or referrals on resident WhatsApp4 groups, neighbourhood management apps have a repository of domestic workers entering the complex.

Their profiles, with images, and ratings (by current and ex-employers) are available for all the residents to see. The workers however, are not employed by these apps.

4 The above image is from a neighbourhood management app (MyGate), which has replaced the modest ledger. It has a repository of all workers who enter the complex, and residents are notified about the workers’ comings and goings. The given apartment complex in NOIDA, at the time of writing has about 2250 units, and the total number of domestic workers in the repository is 832 (cooks + maids). It must be considered that all homes will not be occupied, and there may even be some unregistered workers, or workers who have long left the complex still being part of the repository, and other such nuances. Therefore, these numbers are purely indicative and aim to offer an approximation.

Then there are times when the workers are searching for more work.

They either let the tower guards know or request their current employers to refer them

And very often, they are denied. Their profiles are deleted from the app, And they are forbidden from entering the complex

Ex-employers often brand domestic workers as "pathetic" or "bad," using vague critiques to mask their objections to workers' calls for dignity, fair wages, and rights. These denouncers are then praised as do-gooders, seen as "creating awareness".

Most domestic workers in these complexes either work in a few houses or are trying to secure more work5 In the interlude between their Chutta Kaam6, they wait in ‘common’ spaces

5 This is not the case for ‘live-in’ domestic workers, and their conditions of work and engagement with the complex have their own set of intricacies.
6 Chutta/Khula Kaam is commonplace term for work in different houses in Delhi NCR.

Until they are spotted…..

Surveillance is a core aspect of suburban design. In its engagement with domestic workers, it transcends its role, it's very idea is weaponized to instil fear. Often, the workers are displaced, simply being told the CCTV may see them

See what, indeed?

they see workers gather and talk, ‘Madams’ fear gossip or, worse, the seeds of organisation. And so they are moved, displaced within their place of work.

7 This is what various domestic workers mentioned they were told as they are displaced, and this reasoning is certainly an addition to workers’ removal from lawns and public spaces on various other accounts, such as caste-based notions of purity, invisibilizing labour and upholding the complex’s sanitised vision. This does include a fundamental upper caste and class discomfort of seeing a worker at rest

By contrast, some spaces are clearly designated for workers.8

Often, the segregation is made apparent not only by the signage, but by the poor, and even unsafe quality of construction.

8 It is commonplace knowledge by now that these gated complexes have separate elevators for residents & service (domestic workers, gig workers, construction workers, and staff employed by the society itself), even if the usage and enforcement vary across different societies.

Masuma9 arrived at her complex at 8 AM and wanted to walk and chat on the phone before starting work at the agreed upon 8:30 AM.

However, MyGate notified her employer of her entry, who called her to work at once, And Masuma had to work the extra half hour, at no extra pay.

9 Name changed to protect identity.

I reached out to Poonam10, the ‘pathetic’ worker who didn’t find Work in the complex after the WhatsApp tirade by a resident. We sat on the steps of a bank ATM in Bhangel11, and talked over ice cream. She was shorter than I expected, and spoke softly.

Initially hesitant, Poonam gradually opened up. Overwhelmed by handling the employers’ three kids, she expressed a desire to quit. The resident, furious, withheld her last month’s pay and blocked her from entering the complex—cutting her off from both her wages and familiar work environment

10 Name changed to protect identity
11 Gautam Buddha Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh

So how does this network of infrastructure, deepen the ambiguity in an already fragmented, informal occupation? What are the contradictions laid bare by them?

Is the worker employed by the complex or the household?
If the household, why must she log data into an app for the complex?
Why is her early arrival assumed to be for work? Why multiple checkpoints—does this count as work time?..

9 Name changed to protect identity.

Strange enough, that the worker works in multiple houses is what allows for the referrals and rating systems to flourish. Yet, this very basic facet of her work is unaccounted for in the infrastructure. Where is she to wait between multiple jobs?

This displacement renders her invisible. Her presence is demanded, but she shouldn’t be seen.

Milani tells me about one time she helped a ‘24-hour’ domestic worker who was locked in whenever her employers left home. Bit by bit, the worker escaped— she’d wear two layers of clothes, leaving one with Milani during brief visits to the park.

Live-in or 24 domestic workers are usually placed in gated Delhi NCR homes by exploitative maid agencies that most often deceive and coerce them. Employers impose harsh restrictions, barring access even to complex grounds, while the “24-hour” work label erases boundaries, leaving workers vulnerable to constant exploitation.

The apps, CCTVs, and built environment are a network of infrastructures, and cannot be viewed in isolation. For instance, the easy-to-access profiles of domestic workers on the apps, screenshotted and shared over a WhatsApp group proffer an instantaneity in communication, creating a circuit of which the worker stands outside. Therefore, they can be seen as a new layer, settling on existing notions and conditions of the domestic worker. They are never neutral, but work to restrict workers’ access to time and space, under the guise of ‘formalisation’. In reality, formalisation only occurs in ways that enable greater control over domestic workers.

But as we saw, these layers have glaring contradictions at their core. It is these contradictions which will give way to ruptures, albeit gradually, Between domestic worker organising on the rise, and smaller, more spontaneous resistances, there is hope.

Credits: This piece would not have been possible without Sureet Singh's editorial inputs, sharp suggestions, and support. I’d also like to thank Sayan Biswas for his suggestions on layout

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