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At the weekend, India extended the nationwide coronavirus lockdown by another fortnight, but said that domestic helpers can now return to work. The decision has had millions of middle-class homes debating a key question – to let the workers in or not? The BBC’s Geeta Pandey in Delhi explains the dilemma.
A friend once said that if she had to choose between her husband and her maid, she would pick the latter.
The comment was made as a joke, but it’s an example of how much Indians depend on their domestic helpers.
According to official estimates, more than four million people are employed as domestic helpers, often for very little money, in middle-class and affluent Indian homes. Unofficial estimates put that number at a whopping 50 million. Two-thirds of these workers are women.
The relationship between the maid and the “mistress/master” is one of interdependence – extreme poverty compels unskilled slum-dwellers and rural poor to seek employment as domestic help as a way of earning a living and for the middle-class, it provides cheap labour that keeps their homes running smoothly.
But for the past six weeks, millions of middle-class homes have had to manage without their maids, cooks, nannies, nurses, drivers and gardeners as India imposed a strict nationwide lockdown to arrest the spread of the coronavirus.
To begin with most accepted the restrictions, thinking it was just for three weeks. Some Bollywood stars even posted Instagram videos of themselves, cooking and cleaning and doing the dishes.
But with the lockdown extended twice already, and the idea sinking in that this is going to be a long haul, middle-class India has begun to miss the maids.
Conversation has also veered towards how elderly people living alone are coping. And how those in poor health are managing without help.
Then, there is the distress that domestic helpers are facing, leaving them with little choice but to get back to work.
“Many have lost their jobs and many others say they are not being paid salaries for the lockdown period,” Meenakshi Gupta Jain, chief of Helper4U, an online platform that links domestic workers with employers, told the BBC.
For the past month, their Covid Helpline WhatsApp number has been receiving 10 to 15 messages daily from maids, drivers and cooks seeking help.
“They say they have run out of money. What do we do? How do we feed our children? We guide them to local charities in their area who can help them get some free ration or cooking gas,” Ms Gupta Jain says.
Sonika Verma, a domestic helper in Delhi who resumed work on Monday, says she counts herself as lucky since her employers have paid her salary for the lockdown period.
“I was very tense all these weeks. My husband drives an auto-rickshaw, but he’s been sitting at home because autos are not allowed to ply. I also couldn’t go to work and I was afraid what would we do if I lost my job too,” she told me.
Her sisters, she says, have not been paid for the lockdown period.