Anvita Datla Week 7

Of Rasoi ka Kaam/Bathroom ka Kaam- Sonal Sharma 

Sonal Sharma in her article ‘Of Rasoi ka Kaam/Bathroom ka Kaam Perspectives of Women Domestic Workers” talks about the employer/employee dynamics in the domestic work place in India bringing to light the notions of purity and pollution. She talks about how segregation of dirty from the clean leads to social construction of space creating a social boundary between home and outside. The segregation by the employers in their households  in the name of hygiene pollution etc. reinforce caste relations and the practice of untouchability. The author further talks about the fact that it is not always the employers who due to their class and their notions of purity enforce caste based discrimination, but the domestic workers themselves also reinforce these caste based practices by classifying other workers and even some employers as ‘dirty’. Hierarchies of caste are thus present between workers as well. Workers higher in the hierarchy do not like performing small and ‘dirty’ tasks, for example only the lowest castes perform the work of cleaning toilets. These tasks get embedded and institutionalised and thus there is ‘task segregation’ that is created as to which caste is to perform a specific task. The author also brings forth the aspect of religion ad how Muslims mostly perform tasks of cleaning the house as Hindu employers don’t want muslims entering the kitchen.  

The caste based discrimination talked about in the reading is seen by most of us as well, either in our homes or of our neighbours. This discrimination is enforced in the most smallest of things like having different utensils in the house for the workers to having different chairs for them or making them sit on the floor all in the name of ‘maintenance of hygiene’. All this portrays the deep rooted caste discrimination that still prevails.