Aashna Gupta Week 7

Rasoi Ka Kaam/Bathroom Ka Kaam

Sonal Sharma

The author discusses the concept of purity and pollution rooted in caste privileges and how caste influences class. The 'dirty' work is restricted to employees and kept in line with lower castes. This is often limited to cleaning the house, which, in the patriarchal society, is often performed by women. "Dirt" is often socially constructed with respect to sexes, castes, and material objects. According to Chakrabarty, the symbolic practices, of segregating “dirty” from the clean, on the basis of “hygiene” or “pollution,” is key to the social construction of space. Domestic workers' role is not just in removing dirt but representing "dirt" themselves. This is the idea which untouchability takes inspiration from. According to Pei Chia-Lan, it is through these mundane acts of domesticity that boundaries of distinction are drawn and hierarchies re-established in domestic work relations. Similarly, women workers have a different understanding of ghare and bahire, which emanates from caste and religion. "While employers may practice untouchability to maintain (or gain) social status, for non-Dalit workers the notions of untouchability are often the strategies of self-preservation and dignity." In the end, what is most disturbing is that these different social locations end up influencing economic gains, status and power.