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For Bed and Board Only: Women and Girl Children Domestic Workers in Post-Partition Calcutta (1951–1981)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2012

ISHITA CHAKRAVARTY  and
DEEPITA CHAKRAVARTY
ISHITA CHAKRAVARTY
Affiliation:
Vidyasagar College, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India Email: [email protected]
DEEPITA CHAKRAVARTY
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper attempts to see how a particular labour market (domestic service), a traditionally male domain, became segregated both by gender and age in the post-partition Indian state of West Bengal, and mainly in its capital city Calcutta. It argues that the downward trend in industrial job opportunities in post independent West Bengal, accompanied by the large scale immigration of men, women and children from bordering East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), led to a general decline in wage rate for those in domestic service. Poor refugee women, in their frantic search for a means of survival, gradually drove out the males of the host population who were engaged in domestic service in urban West Bengal by offering to work for a very low wage and often for no wage at all. As poor males from the neighbouring states of Bihar, Orissa and the United Provinces constituted historically a substantial section of Calcutta domestic workers, it was mainly this group who were replaced by refugee women. The second stage in the changing profile of domestic service since the 1970s in urban West Bengal was arguably set by migrating girl children from different parts of the state to Calcutta city in search of employment. This is probably why West Bengal had the highest girl children's work-participation rate in urban India in 2001.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 581 - 611
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

The authors are grateful to Bikash Chakravarty and N. Krishnaji, for their comments. The authors also wish to acknowledge their debt to the two anonymous referees of the journal.

References

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2 See for examples, Banerjee, Nirmala, ‘Working Women in Colonial Bengal: Modernization and Marginalization’, reprinted in Sangari, Kumkum and Vaid, Sudesh (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, Zubaan, New Delhi, 2006, pp. 274–276Google Scholar; Mukherjee, Mukul, (1995), ‘Women's Work in Bengal, 1880–1930: A Historical Analysis’ in Ray, Bharati (ed.), From the Seams of History: Essays on Indian Women, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. 237–239Google Scholar; Sen, Samita, ‘Gender and Class: Women in Indian Industry, 1890–1990’, Modern Asian Studies, 42, 1, 2008, Cambridge University Press, pp. 75–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Bagchi, Joshodhara, ‘Women in Calcutta: After Independence’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, II, Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1995, pp. 42–43Google Scholar; Ray, Bharati, ‘Women in Calcutta: The Years of Change’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, II, Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1995, p. 40Google Scholar; Chakravartty, Gargi, Coming out of Partition: Refugee Women of Bengal, BLUEJAY Books, New Delhi, 2005, pp. 69–70, 80Google Scholar; See also Chatterji, Joya, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp.151–155 for related discussionCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-capped Star (1960) based on a novel of the same title by Saktipada Rajguru (1960); Mahanagar (The Big City) (1963) based on a short story by Narendranath Mitra titled Abtaranika (Sequel); see also foot note 62.

5 See, Pratham Kadam Phool (The First Kadam Flower) (1970) based on a novel of the same title by Acintya kumar Sengupta (1961).

6 There are, however, a few exceptions: Banerjee, Nirmala, Women Workers in the Unorganized Sector the Calcutta experience, Sangam Books, Hyderabad, 1985Google Scholar; Samita Sen, ‘Gender and Class’.

7 Some recent studies, however, indicate a return of paid domestic service in parts of the developed world. See, Lutz, Helma, Migration and Domestic Work: A European Perspective on a Global Theme, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Hampshire, 2008Google Scholar; Ozyegin, Gul, Untidy Gender: Domestic Service in Turkey, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001Google Scholar; Bridget Jane Anderson, Doing the Dirty Work?: The Global Politics of Domestic Labour, Zed Books Ltd, London, 2000.

8 For example, see, Banerjee, ‘Working Women’; Mukherjee, ‘Women's Work’; Sen, ‘Gender and Class’.

9 Banerjee, Swapna M., Men, Women, and Domestics: Articulating Middle-Class Identity in Colonial Bengal, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2004Google Scholar.

10 Banerjee, ‘Working Women’, p. 270; Mukherjee, ‘Women's Work’, pp. 225–229.

11 Sen, Samita, Women and Labour in Late Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, pp. 29–30Google Scholar.

12 See for details, Sarkar, Tanika, ‘Politics and Women in Bengal’ in Krishnamurty, J. (ed.),Women in Colonial India Essays on Survival, Work and the State: Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1989, p. 235Google Scholar; Sen, Women and Labour, pp. 133–141.

13 Chatterjee, Partha, ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question’, (1987), reprinted in Sangari, Kumkum and Vaid, Sudesh (eds), Recasting Women Essays in Colonial History, Zubaan, New Delhi, 2006, pp. 237–238Google Scholar.

14 Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar, ‘Caste and Social Mobility’, in Caste, Politics and the Raj Bengal 1872–1937, K. P. Bagchi and Co., Kolkata, 1990: pp. 95–141Google Scholar.

15 See for details, Banerjee, ‘Men, Women and Domestics’, pp. 89–90; Jain, Devaki, ‘The Household Trap: Report on a Field Survey of Female Activity Patterns’ in Jain, Devaki and Banerjee, Nirmala (eds) Tyranny of the Household: Imaginative Essays on Women's Work, Shakti Books, Delhi, 1985, pp. 222–228Google Scholar.

16 In 1981 women domestic workers of all ages enumerated in Calcutta were still a little fewer in number than their male counterparts although girl children had already outnumbered boy children in the service in both urban West Bengal and Calcutta. This difference can be explained by the fact that Calcutta, long a city of single, male migrants acquired a major part of its supply of adult female domestic workers from the surrounding districts, who commuted to the city daily, already in the late 1970s. Thus while the Calcutta middle class was the chief buyer of their services they were enumerated by the Census in the districts where they resided. In fact, as early as the late 1980s local trains carried every morning hundreds of maids from the villages of southern Bengal to Calcutta, who were described as ‘jhee (maid) specials’ by the city's elite. The commuting maids, mostly adults, who work part-time in a number of city homes, are still very much visible in the metropolis.

17 For instance, in the 1951 Census the area of enumeration is defined as Calcutta District and Calcutta Industrial Region, in 1961 as Calcutta City and Calcutta Industrial Region, in 1971 as Calcutta Urban Agglomeration, and finally in 1981 as Calcutta Urban Agglomeration and Calcutta City.

18 Majumder, Pratapchandra, in'Dasdasi’ (Servants and maids), Streecharitra:Streejatiya Unnatibishyak Upadesh ebong Dristanta (Women's Nature: Instructions with Examples on the Upliftment of Women) (first published in 1890), 3rd edition, Navabidhan Publication Committee, Calcutta, 1936, p. 102Google Scholar. Translation ours.

19 Goswami, Omkar, ‘Calcutta's Economy 1918–1970: The Fall from Grace’, in Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, II, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 88–96 (Paperback edition, 1995).Google Scholar

20 Ibid.

21 Banerjee, ‘Men, Women, and Domestics’, p. 93.

22 Forbes, Geraldine, Women in Modern India, The New Cambridge History of India, IV, 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 61–62Google Scholar.

23 Borthwick, Meredith, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal, 1849–1905, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1984, p. 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Goswami (1990) notes that although Calcutta was the glittering jewel of the Raj, it was surrounded by one of the poorest hinterlands. This hints at the extreme income disparity leading to the prevalent practice of employing the poor as domestic workers by the richer sections. See, Goswami, ‘Calcutta's Economy’, p. 96.

25 Atarthi, Premankur, Mahasthabir Jatak, First Part (1944), Dey's Publications, Calcutta, 2009 pp. 27–28Google Scholar.

26 The gradual decline in the number of cooks and domestic staff (mainly male) from neighbouring states could also be related to the decreasing importance of the mess in post-partition Calcutta. That male cooks from Orissa found regular employment in Calcutta messes is borne out by a number of contemporary memoirs (for example, Ganguly, Pabitra, Chalaman Jiban, (Mobile Life) Pratikshan Publications, Calcutta, 1994, p. 178Google Scholar). Before 1947 many of the city messes were inhabited by students and office-goers from the other side of Bengal who spent the weekend at the village or mufassil home and the rest of the week in the city mess. Men from the same district usually preferred a common shelter and establishments soon came to be known after the residents’ regional identity; such as the Jessore mess, or the Dhaka mess. Chakrabarty, Nirendranath suggests in his memoir, Neerobindu (Water-drops), Dey's Publication, Calcutta, 1993, pp. 209–212Google Scholar, that after partition this type of weekend commuting was no longer possible and thus the mess was no longer a convenient option. The final blow to the Calcutta messes according to him, however, came with the introduction of local trains run by electricity, connecting the suburbs and districts of West Bengal with the metropolis. As the distance between the home and the city was remarkably shortened, many from this side of Bengal, who had previously lived in the Calcutta messes, now found it more convenient to commute daily. Gone were the days of the mess-life of Calcutta thriving with the Bengali babus and their Oriya thakurs (cooks).

27 Ray, Satyajit, Jakhon Chhoto Chhilam (When I was in my childhood days), Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1982, pp. 16–18Google Scholar; Mukhopadhyay, Hirendranath, Tari Hote Teer: Paribesh, Pratyaksha o Pratyaer Brittanta (From the Boat to the Shore), Manisha, Calcutta, 1974, p. 17Google Scholar.

28 Chakrabarty, ‘Neerobindu’, p. 106; Sen, Samar, ‘Babubrittanta’ (1978) in Chanda, Pulak (ed.), Babubrittanta o Prasangik, Dey's Publishing, Calcutta, 2004, p. 18Google Scholar.

29 Chattopadhyay, Saratchandra, Charitraheen (The Depraved) (1917) in Rachanabali, Sarat, Vol. 2, Tuli-Kalam, Calcutta, 1989Google Scholar; Gangopadhyay, Narayan, Ektala, Bengal Publishers, Calcutta, 1953Google Scholar.

30 Banerjee, ‘Men, Women and Domestics’, pp. 37–38. See also Engels, Dagmar, Beyond Purdah? Women in Bengal 1890–1939, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1996, pp. 199–200Google Scholar. Engels explains this increase in terms of ‘depeasantization’ in the context of Burdwan Division in the 1920s.

31 During the 1930s and the 1940s male workers also started losing jobs along with females in large numbers in the industry as a consequence of depression and finally the partition of Bengal in 1947. In this context it is not unlikely that the male workers returned to their old domain of domestic service reversing the trend once again in 1951.

32 Jugantar, 22 September, 1956. A Bangla daily published from Calcutta.

33 Bagchi, Amiya Kumar, ‘Studies on the Economy of West Bengal Since Independence’, Economic and Political Weekly, 33, (47, 48), pp. 2973–2978.Google Scholar

34 Sinha, Aseema, The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics in India—A Divided Leviathan, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2005, pp. 54–63Google Scholar.

35 See for estimates, Chakrabarty, Prafulla K., The Marginal Men:The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal, Lumiere Books, Kalyani, 1990, pp. 2–5Google Scholar.

36 Premankur Atarthi (1890–1964) in his memoir, Mahasthabir Jatak (pp. 27–28) noted that during his childhood the Bihari servants in Bengali middle class homes in Calcutta saved enough from their meagre salaries to make remittances to their families in Bihar. This seems also to be the case with workers from the United Provinces and Orissa.

37 A report in Amrita Bazar Patrika (15 June 1950) quoted in Gargi Chakravartty, ‘Coming out of Partition’, p. 49.

38 Jugantar, 28 March 1954; 27 March; 4 April 1956.

39 Jugantar, 4 March; 11 March; 16 September 1956; 12 December 1960.

40 Jugantar, 14 March 1954.

41 Jugantar, 23 January; 28 March 1954.

42 Jugantar, 9 May 1954.

43 Jugantar, 23 April 1954; 15 December 1960.

44 Jugantar, 17 March 1957.

45 Jugantar, 3 January 1954; 29 April 1956.

46 Jugantar, 11 March 1956.

47 Ibid.

48 Jugantar, 6 January 1955; 1 July; 28 July; 20 September 1956.

49 Jugantar, 22 May 1956.

50 Jugantar, 6 January 1955; 1 July; 28 July; 20 September 1956.

51 Omkar Goswami (1990, pp. 90–91) notes that distress migration from the rural hinterlands to Calcutta city was quite prevalent even before the partition. This internal migration probably was the source of maids from West Bengal.

52 Joshodhara Bagchi, ‘Women in Calcutta: After Independence’, pp. 42–44 Joya Chatterji, ‘Spoils of Partition, pp. 153–154.’

53 Jugantar, 11 February 1954.

54 Jugantar, 17 March, 31 March 1957; 1 February; 14 November 1960.

55 See, Gargi Chakravartty, ‘Coming Out of Partition’, pp. 82–83.

56 Government of West Bengal, Rehabilitation of refugees: A statistical survey, 1955, State Statistical Bureau, Alipore, 1956.

57 See, Chatterji, ‘Spoils of Partition’, p. 145 and also Chakravartty, ‘Coming Out of Partition’, pp. 86–92.

58 Ibid.

59 Jugantar, 16 January 1960.

60 Jugantar, 30 January 1960.

61 Women, particularly in families with no adult or able males, started working as stenographers, telephone operators, in the Food Rationing Department, etc. (See Bharati Ray, ‘Women in Calcutta’, p. 40).

62 Mitra, Narendranath, ‘Abataranika’ (Sequel) (1949), reprinted in Narendranath Mitra, Galpamala 1, Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1986, pp. 122–143Google Scholar.

63 Some of the other stories by Mitra portraying refugee women in domestic service in post 1947 Calcutta and the dates of their first publication are: ‘Dwicharini’ (The Double-dealer) (1949), reprinted in Galpamala 1, pp. 157–168; ‘Purna’ (Turned Full) (1952), reprinted in Galpamala 2, 1989, pp. 143–153; ‘Mulya’ (Value) (1952) reprinted in Galpamala 4, 1994, pp. 118–129.

64 Dutta, Pramila, Phire Dekha (Glancing Back), Calcutta, 1998, pp. 102–103Google Scholar.

65 The gradual decrease in the size of the refugee families which initially often tended to be larger, has been noted by Pakrashi, Kanti B. in his, The Uprooted: A Sociological Study of the Refugees of West Bengal, India, Calcutta, 1971, p. 72Google Scholar.

66 Reported by a domestic worker, Kalidasi, from the South 24 Parganas and working in Calcutta in 1976. A report on domestic workers in Ananda Bazar Patrika, 11 December 1976.

67 Government of India, Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, New Delhi, 1974, pp. 178–179.

68 An earlier survey among the part-time maids living in the Kasba area of the city in the early 1970s (Niranjan Halder, ‘Kolkatar Thike Jhi’ (Calcutta's Part-time Maids), Samatat (A Bangla little magazine), 1974) found that all 18 women interviewed were migrants to the city. Three of them had come from Bangladesh, 13 from the South 24 Parganas and 2 from Howrah district. Three among them were young girls between the ages of 12 and 15 years who had migrated to the city with their mothers (also among the respondents).We have already noted that newspaper insertions in the early 1950s show that some families in Calcutta preferred to employ girls (Jugantar, 23 April 1956).

69 The Bengal Destitute Persons Ordinance allowed colonial police to hound the thousands of famine-destitute and drive them away from the city. However, many probably remained and started a new life inside the city in water pipes and beside railway lines (see, Goswami, ‘Calcutta's Economy’, p. 92).

70 For example, Mahalanobis, P. C., Mukherjee, R., and Ghosh, A., A Sample Survey of After Effects of the Bengal Famine of 1943, Statistical Publishing House, Calcutta, 1946Google Scholar; Agarwal, Bina, ‘Social Security and the Family: Coping with Seasonality and Calamity in Rural India’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 17, 1990, pp. 341–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Jugantar, 28 February; 7 March; 21 March 1954.

72 Jugantar, 21 March, 1954. On the basis of her interviews with refugee women, Chakravartty in ‘Coming out of Partition’ (p. 89) notes that maids from East Bengal did more work for less pay which often led to confrontations with maids originating from West Bengal.

73 Migration from Pakistan to West Bengal actually took place from the then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The 1961 Census records it as Pakistan, as Bangladesh was not created until 1971.

74 Among the districts of West Bengal, other than Calcutta, the main concentration of refugee settlement was in the 24 Parganas followed by Nadia. See Chatterji, ‘Spoils of Partition’, pp. 119–121.

75 It needs to be noted that already in 1977–1978 (NSS 32nd Round) girl work participation rate was highest in Calcutta city out of the four metropoles.

76 We have already documented that female migration for employment to Calcutta was mostly intra-state. Therefore, the case of girl children migrants from all areas to Calcutta for work in 1961 and that of girl children migrants from all areas within the state to Calcutta seeking employment in 1981 are largely comparable.

77 See footnote 67.

78 Giri, Pabitra, ‘Urbanization in West Bengal, 1951–1991’, Economic and Political Weekly, 33, 47, 48, 1998, pp. 3033–3038Google Scholar.

79 See for a critique of the land reforms in West Bengal, ‘Dipankar Basu, Political Economy of ‘Middleness’: Behind Violence in Rural West Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 21 April 2001, pp. 1333–1344. Gazdar, Haris and Sengupta, Sunil, ‘Agricultural Growth and Trends in Well-Being in Rural West Bengal’ in Rogaly, Benet al. (eds), Sonar Bangla? Agricultural Growth and Agrarian Change in West Bengal and Bangladesh, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1999, pp. 60–91Google Scholar. Dwaipan Bhattacharyya, ‘Politics of Middleness: The Changing Character of the Communist Party in West Bengal (1977–1990) ‘in Sonar Bangla, pp. 279–299.

80 ‘Employment Trends and Diversification’ in West Bengal Human Development Report 2004, Development and Planning Department, Government of West Bengal, pp. 97–100.

81 Recorded by the National Sample Survey, 2004–2005, Report Number 515 (61/10/1) Part 1, Central Statistical Organization, Government of India.

82 Roy, Ananya, Calcutta Requiem: Gender and the Politics of Poverty, Pearson Longman, 2008, pp. 102–103Google Scholar.

83 Save the Children, ‘Evaluation of Project: Comprehensive Intervention on Child Domestic Work’, Calcutta, 2004 and ‘Abuse Among Child Domestic Workers’, Calcutta, 2006.

84 Chakravarty, Ishita, ‘Master, Mistress and the Maid: Changing Relationships in Post-colonial Kolkata (1951 to 2004–2005)’, Minor Research Project Report submitted to University Grants Commission, India (UGC), June, 2010Google Scholar.

85 Some cultural reasons behind preferring ‘pre-puberty girls’ to young women as domestic workers by middle class women employers in Calcutta of the 1980s have been put forward by Raka Ray in ‘Masculinity, Femininity, and Servitude: Domestic Workers in Calcutta in the Late Twentieth Century’, Feminist Studies 26, no. 3 (Fall 2000), pp. 691–718.

86 Chakravarty, Deepita and Chakravarty, Ishita, ‘Girl Children in the Care Economy: Domestics in West Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 43, 48, pp. 93–100Google Scholar.

87 See in this context, Raka Ray, ‘Masculinity, Femininity, and Servitude’; Deepita Chakravarty and Ishita Chakravarty, ‘Girl Children in the care Economy’.

88 Save the Children, 2004; 2006; newspaper reports.

89 Dainik Statesman, 7 March 2007; Bartaman, 19 May 2007; Anandabazar Patrika, 25 February; 28 September 2008; 7 November 2009; 11 May 2012.

90 Chowdhury, Ramapada, Kharij, Ananda Publishers, Calcutta, 1974Google Scholar.

91 Kharij (The Case is Closed), 1982.