Angry domestic helpers chanted in protest outside a luxury high-rise in Noida on Wednesday (PTI)
A mob of angry domestic workers chanted in protest and threw stones at a luxury high-rise outside India's capital on Wednesday, laying bare the deep divisions between the haves and have-nots in one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
Police said that more than 150 maids working in the apartment complex in suburban Noida set upon the gates just after 6 a.m. - about the time many of them report for duty - because they believed one of their fellow domestic workers was being held inside against her will.
The maids forced their way into the Mahagun Moderne complex, throwing stones and leaving broken windows and strewn glass in their wake.
Police said one of the high-rise's residents had accused her employee of stealing. The maid's family said the woman was beaten and held prisoner overnight after she demanded two months' worth of unpaid wages.
"Madam said to me, if you try to run away, I'll throw you in the dust bin. I'll kill you," the maid, Johra Bibi, said in a whisper, lying on a small cot outside her slum dwelling not far away.
No arrests have been made, and Superintendent of Police A.K. Singh told television reporters that police were still trying to sort out what happened because "both sides are blaming each other."
Most maids in India work long hours for paltry wages, with little time off. Some state governments have tried in recent years to regularize wages for domestic workers - in Rajasthan, for example, they now must be paid at least $87 a month. But many make less than that.
India's elite have for centuries employed servants, but economic liberalization and the rise of the middle class meant that the number of cooks, maids and drivers has grown exponentially in recent decades, journalist Tripti Lahiri wrote in a recent book, "Maid in India." Hundreds of thousands have migrated from villages to India's major urban centers to tend to the needs of the elite.
But class divisions between household staff and their affluent bosses remain deeply entrenched, Lahiri writes: "We eat first, they eat later . . . we live in front, they live in the back, we sit on chairs and they sit on the floor, we drink from glasses and ceramic plates and they from ones made of steel and set aside for them, we call them by their names, they address us by titles . . ."
More than 2,000 families live in Mahagun Moderne, a gated, 25-acre complex with swimming pools, a tennis court and landscaped pathways. A short distance away, their household help - mostly migrants from the state of West Bengal - live in tin-roofed huts in a muddy field, bathing from a communal tap.
Wednesday's brawl occurred after a confrontation between Johra Bibi and her employer over about $125 in back wages, according to the maid's husband, Abdul Sattar, a construction worker.
He said that after his wife did not return home Tuesday evening, he went to the employer's home with police looking for her and was told she was not there. Dozens of angry domestic workers crowded at the complex's gates in the morning, shouting for Johra Bibi's release.
"No one does anything for us. No one helps," Sattar said. "God makes us poor. What can we do? We do what the rich tell us to do. We sit where they tell us to sit. They reign over us. Even you know the rich and the poor can never be one. They think the poor are not human."
One of the protesting maids, Haseena Bibi, 28, said that while Johra Bibi's employer had been abusive, many of the other families treated their help well and that the maids were glad to have their jobs. Now, they feared they might lose them.
"We've never done anything like this before," Haseena Bibi said.