Geetanjali Krishna: Maid in India

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

There's no doubt about it. Being a maid is no fun, unless you're Jennifer Lopez in a light romantic comedy. You cook and clean. Scrub the floors and do the dishes. If you're a part-time maid, life's just as bad. You scrub the floors in not just one, but maybe as many as eight homes "" and then go home for more of the same. All this, with no real chances of advancement. Once a maid, always a maid.

And what does the government do for you? Nothing. You don't really exist. In most states, you're not part of either the organised or unorganised sectors. No laws protect your specific interests. You get no pension, no healthcare benefits and no stipulated working hours. Unlike an unskilled factory worker, even a trained housekeeper is at the often arbitrary, rarely tender mercy of her employers "" if they give her a day off in a week, it's great. If they don't, that's just too bad. If they choose to foot her medical bills, it's because they're generous, not because the law says they must do so. And if they abuse her "" physically, mentally or sexually, it's likely that she's too dependant on them to raise her voice.

"If you think about it, domestic labour in India is nothing but a contemporary form of slavery," says Dr Jeanne Devos, who spearheaded the National Domestic Workers Movement (NDWM), India's first national movement to bring visibility to the plight of domestic workers in 1985. In 1997, Devos along with other like-minded groups from Latin America and South Africa pressurised the ILO into declaring domestic labour as one of the four worst forms of child labour. Today, NDWM has two million domestic workers across 22 states as members. They have two basic aims. "First, we want domestic labour to be recognised as legitimate work," says Devos, "and second, we want the same sort of welfare schemes for domestic workers as there are for other workers "" pension, social security, healthcare schemes and so on."

Her job is not easy, for a majority of domestic workers have such low self-esteem that they accept the injustice of their lives as their lot. "So first, we get them organised into local groups that meet every Sunday to discuss issues that trouble them. In one locality it could be the lack of drinking water, while in another, it could be the non-issuance of ration cards. The group addresses such problems as a whole," she explains. These groups have proven immensely useful in educating domestic workers about their rights, and in empowering them to tackle bigger issues. The ones in Patna protest against as many as twenty cases of abuse and ill-treatment every week by demonstrating in front of the errant employers' homes.

It's not been easy. "We've encountered unbelievable amounts of resistance to our demands," says Devos. "Employers feel so threatened by our groups that they tell their maids they'll increase their salaries if they do not sign up..." she says. However, it's largely thanks to NDWM's efforts that today, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have specified a minimum wage for domestic work. "We're expecting good news from the north-eastern states too, especially from Meghalaya, as well as from Maharashtra and Bihar," she says.

Devos believes our attitudes towards domestic work must change before our laws do. "With due respect to airhostesses, don't they too serve meals and clean up? Why can't we think of our maids in the same way?" asks Devos, "they work for people like us to ensure our comfort and quality of life "" shouldn't we work to ensure theirs as well?"