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 of 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: housekeeping, gardening, security, waste collection, et cetera. Several services like waste collection and disposal as well as security are handled by the builders or contracted out to an agency that 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 or 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 remains non-exhaustive. This graphic essay is particularly interested in the relationship that 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 essay primarily takes into consideration workers who are not ‘live-in maids’ (that is, they do not reside in the household they work in) and only briefly considers workers who reside in the households. Those too, require their specific inquiry.
It is concerned primarily with workers who come into the gated complexes to work within a household unit on a daily basis, and tries to understand how their spatio-temporal being is affected in various ways by the infrastructure of 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 that remains to be explored, reported on and written about.
This piece isn’t interested only 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 is made abstract. 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. The ‘scenes’ for this piece come from photographs I have taken while walking around such complexes, coupled with memories of similar spaces. I’ve used pen on paper for this piece. I’ve previously written on this idea too, but felt that it didn’t catch some of the glaring contradictions. This is not to say this graphic utterance is able to do that entirely, but I hope the images have a sense of silence and estrangement that I intended them to have.
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
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 mini cities' offerings of leisure and pleasure: domestic work.3 4
Apart from requests or referrals on resident WhatsApp groups, neighbourhood management apps5 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.
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.
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,
for "creating awareness".
Most domestic workers in these complexes either work in a few houses or are trying to secure more work6 In the interlude between their Chutta Kaam7, they wait in ‘common’ spaces.
Until they are spotted…..
Surveillance is a core aspect of suburban design.
In its engagement with domestic workers,
it transcends its role. Its very idea is weaponized to instill fear.
Often, the workers are displaced by simply being told that 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 work8.
By contrast, some spaces are clearly designated for workers.9
Often, the segregation is made apparent not only by the signage, but by the poor, and even unsafe quality of construction.
9 It is common knowledge that these gated complexes have separate elevators for residents & service providers (domestic workers, gig workers, construction workers and staff employed by the society itself), even if the usage and enforcement varies across different societies.
Masuma10 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.
10 Name changed to protect identity.
I reached out to Poonam11, 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 Bhangel12 and talked over ice cream. She spoke softly.
Initially hesitant, Poonam gradually opened up.
Overwhelmed by handling her employers’ three children, Poonam expressed a desire to leave the job.
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.
11 Name changed to protect identity.
12 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?
This displacement renders her invisible. Her presence is demanded, but she shouldn’t be seen.
Strangely enough, the fact that the worker works in multiple houses allows for the referrals and rating systems to flourish. Yet, the physical, emotional and social cost of this very basic facet of her work — where she has to move between houses hour to hour –- 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 this one time she helped a ‘24-hour’13 domestic worker who was locked in whenever her employers left home. Bit by bit, the worker escaped.
She would wear two layers of clothes each time she came to the park, leaving one set with Milani14.
13 Live-in or 24 hour domestic workers are usually placed in Delhi NCR homes by maid agencies that often deceive, coerce, and blackmail the young girls and women who have arrived from rural areas.Employers impose further harsh restrictions, barring access even to complex grounds,
The “24-hour” work label erases boundaries, leaving workers vulnerable to constant exploitation.
14
Milani is a former domestic worker. I spoke with her for this piece to better understand the specificities of live-in domestic work.
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 — screenshot and shared over a WhatsApp group — offer an instantaneity in communication, but also create a circuit that excludes the worker.
These infrastructures build a new layer, settling on existing notions and conditions of the domestic worker.
But these layers of formalisation and surveillance infrastructure have glaring contradictions at their core.
It is these contradictions that will give way to ruptures, albeit gradually.
Between domestic worker organising on the rise, and smaller, more spontaneous resistances, there is hope.
These infrastructures are never neutral.
Under the guise of ‘formalisation’, these infrastructures enable greater control over domestic workers.
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 the layout.
