Varalika Deswal, Week 7

·             Of Rasoi ka Kaam/ Bathroom ka Kaam –Sonal Sharma

The complex employer/ employee relations in the domestic work place in India come from the societal concepts of purity and pollution. Where caste and domestic work intersect it gives rise to evident differences in caste and class identities among the worker and the employer. It is always assumed that the employer is of a higher caste than the worker and it is this dynamic that leads to the framed figure of the employer as a person of authority and power. Dirt is socially constructed to give an excuse to the upper caste to dismiss their workers as unhygienic which then gets embedded within their caste’s identity. The home is a place of social interactions where people of the same social strata often find themselves drawn closer to each other, though employees also interact with their employers, it is often in a limited capacity and not as intimate. This leads to a further segregation between classes in the domestic sphere. Practices based on caste identities are what give rise to the idea of ‘dirt’ and ‘pollution’, one who cleans the dirt somehow becomes polluted because of it- giving legitimacy to the hierarchies formed in our caste based society on the pretext of hygiene. These elements along with the stigma of domestic work being associated with femininity reinforces the brahmanical patriarchal discourse in our everyday lives.