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Nepali Domestic Workers in New Delhi: Strategies and Agency Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 13, 2019, PP 49-57 49 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3126/dsaj.v13i0.25960 Received: 17/10/2019...Accepted: 16/12/ 2019 Nepali Domestic Workers in New Delhi: Strategies and Agency Chudamani Basnet Sandhya A. S. Abstract Scholars have noted deplorable conditions of female migrant workers who suffer several types of citizenship disabilities as most countries do not extend equal citizenship rights and protections to migrant workers. In addition to this, they are unable to take full advantage of the rights available to them in the host countries because of low cultural and social capital. Further, studies have emphasized how the breakdown of the traditional economy and the penetration of the market in developing societies have forced people, especially from rural areas, to seek low-paying dead-end jobs in the global labor market. Examining Nepali domestic workers in New Delhi, while this research agrees with the existing studies, we also bring to notice the fact that migrant female workers are not always passive victims and that they exercise considerable choice and agency. The case of Nepali domestic workers in New Delhi offers fresh insight into the ways in which migrant women attempt to actively influence and control the work conditions and immediate labour market outcomes. This paper also shows that even if Nepali migrant workers gain in a limited way, they actively collude with their employers to marginalize native domestic workers. In the end, traditional power relations and inequality are reproduced unchallenged. Keywords: migrant workers, native domestic workers, low cultural and social capital We do not, however, mean that they exercise some Introduction freewheeling agency. Macro forces as well as their biographical capital, rooted in their past experiences, Scholars have noted lamentable conditions of female the particular stage of their life cycles and entrenched migrant workers (Abu-Habib,1998; Adib & Guerrier, “habitus,” affect their choices, agency and strategies 2003; Bauder, 2005; Bauder, 2008; Frantz, 2008; Sassen, (Bourdieu, 1990; Bourdieu, 2002 [1986]). As social 2000). Migrant workers suffer several types of citizenship scientists have long argued, neo-classical economic disabilities as most countries do not extend equal theories, which depict labour market as atomistic and citizenship rights and protections to them (Walia, 2010). perfectly competitive, do not capture the nuances of the Relatedly, because of low cultural and social capital, actually existing labour market. They instead argue that they are unable to take full advantage of whatever rights the labour market is profoundly gendered, ethnicized, are available to them in the host country (Bustamante, castecized, and racialized (Adib & Guerrier, 2003; Harriss- 2002). Women are further exploited as cheap and docile White, 2005; Mills, 2003; Ridgeway, 1997; Ridgeway, labor (Elson & Pearson, 1981; Mills, 2003). In addition, 2009; Ridgeway et al. 2009; Thorat & Neuman, 2012). studies have emphasized how breakdown of the traditional At the broader theoretical level, therefore, this study aims economy and the penetration of market in the developing to understand the cultural underpinnings of labour market societies have forced people, especially from rural areas, to and its consequences for different actors and institutions. seek low-paying dead-end jobs in the global labor market The micro-dynamics also help us understand the durability (Castles, 2013). Examining Nepali domestic workers in and reproduction of different forms of inequality, since the New Delhi, we mostly agree with the existing studies but, agents draw on and contribute to the structural and cultural based on our study of micro-dynamics between employers forces that they are enmeshed in. and employees, we also bring to notice the fact that migrant As has been observed in the West, the Middle East and female workers are not always passive victims and that the rising East Asian economies, India has witnessed the they exercise considerable choice and agency. rise of the phenomenon of household domestic workers This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Chudamani Basnet & Sandhya A.S. Chudamani Basnet: Assistant Professor, South Asian University, New Delhi, India Email: [email protected]/ https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9593-6562. Sandhya A. S: Doctoral Researcher at Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany Email: [email protected]/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3691-386X 50 Chudamani Basnet & Sandhya A. S. in recent decades. Indian employers in our study seek adversely affects the local Indian domestic workers. domestic service of different kinds due to real and perceived Consciously or unconsciously, Nepali workers contribute “lack of time” because of their regular employment, school to the marginalisation of the native Dalit and Muslim or college going kids, and family members needing special domestic workers, who have long suffered in their own care (Basnet & A.S., 2020, forthcoming). India has also right. In the end, the strategies of survival in the labour a long history of keeping domestic servants as a “feudal” market adopted by the Nepali domestic workers end up status symbol (Qayum & Ray, 2003; Ray & Qayum, 2009). reproducing unequal power relations. The preferences in these houses are for part time domestic workers. The domestic workers are asked to wash dishes, Research Site and the Major Actors clean and mop floor, wash cloth manually or in the machine and clean house in general. Similarly, Nepali migrant This research was conducted in 2015-2016 at R.K. women, who came to New Delhi with their husbands as Puram Sector 1 and 4, one of the central zones of South “trailing” wives, work as domestic workers since domestic Delhi. Government offices and residential quarters dot the work, in most cases, does not require legal documents1. A locality. The employers reside in these quarters and largely lack of “skills” on the part of the domestic servants is not a belonged to grade II and III (Lower division clerks and hindrance as women’s work has been historically devalued stenographers) of central government service class. While as “non-work” (Elias & Louth, 2016). most of these quarters are allotted to the male members Focussing on the perspectives and actions of Nepali of the house, a handful of them are allotted to women domestic workers, we show that these migrant women too. However, women, not men, deal with the domestic deliberately choose the informal domestic sector. Once service. These employers come from New Delhi as well as they have chosen their area of employment, just like their from other Indian states. They are middle and upper caste employers construct an image of the “ideal maid” (Huang Hindus, bilingual and call themselves middle-class. & Yeoh, 2016), Nepali workers too construct an image of Several slums in the area sit uncomfortably in the the ideal employer and household. Second, once employed, otherwise sanitized government quarters. The “camps” and they use a variety of strategies to retain their job and secure “jhuggis” of the locality cater to the domestic help market. additional benefits from their employer. They, for example, Jhuggis, loosely translated as slums, are not a visual and actively feign ignorance and passivity to come across as an olfactory pleasure for employers and local residents. They ideal worker. Such feigned passivity on the part of women also generate a sense of fear among the residents, noticeably workers has also been observed in different times and performed in the demarcation of space through barbed places (Elson & Pearson, 1981 for instance). Third, they wires around jhuggis and the quarters. In the research site, have to compete with the native workers and accordingly, there are primarily two such jhuggis: a Muslim jhuggi and they engage in specific forms of cultural work that cast a Nepali jhuggi, also known as the parvatia camp3. While their competitors on the negative light. Unlike in the West, there are a handful of Nepalis in the Muslim jhuggi, there where the domestic worker market is formalized to a great are some Muslims and Christians who are not necessarily extent, the recruitment in India is overwhelmingly informal Nepali in the Nepali jhuggi. The Muslim jhuggi, not and done through personal contacts. Cultural work thus very far from the Nepali camp, is occupied primarily by becomes even more important in the Indian context2. Muslim families from Kolkata who speak Bengali. On As poor and barely literate immigrants working as the other hand, the Nepali jhuggi primarily constitutes wage earners for the first time in their lives, the Nepali first-generation Nepali migrants largely from places such domestic workers contribute to their meagre family as Rolpa and Gulmi in Nepal’s central hills. Both these income, which enhances their prestige in their patriarchal slums have many “low caste” Hindu migrants from the households (Basnet & A. S., 2020, forthcoming). Although Indian states of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar, occupying exploited and heavily constrained in their moves, they their jhuggis and competing with them in the local labour nevertheless turn the situation into their favour. The market. agency that the Nepali domestic workers exercise is one Historically, low caste women have served wealthy that is geared toward survival in the market economy. high-caste households in various capacities in India. In Most importantly, the “success” of the Nepali workers recent years, many low-caste men and women as well as Muslims, have worked for the public sector as “jamadaars” 1. Nepalis and Indians have migrated into each other’s territories for or cleaning staff (Harriss-White, 2005; Ravichandran, centuries. For the history of Nepali migration in India, see Bhattrai, 2007; 2011; Tripathi, 2012). Some of them work for the local Nath, 2006; and Subba et al., 2009. The Indo-Nepal international border Post Office informally and through small contracts. The is open and citizens of these countries can cross the border without a visa.
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