Opinion A New York nanny replies

Thank you for your open letter in The Indian Express on December 24 (‘Letter to an Indian nanny in New York’,Jaithirth Rao). I know your letter was meant to be caustic,if not sarcastic. I am not from India. However,your letter was a good reminder of what Indian housekeepers/ babysitters are up against and how miserable they would be but for the leg-up they may get from self-appointed,bleeding heart,sanctimonious,do-gooders like you. I must say you are rather harsh on yourself with your adjectives.

You are right in saying this is not the time to talk about the effect of the local New York laws on American youth. Discussing if a high minimum wage has a particular racial impact on unemployment would be a digression. You are so right — I earn a lot more than what I would earn in my home country,but you should have also pointed out (after all,you are on our side,aren’t you?) that I have to spend far more here than I would in my home country.

Surely,as a human rights liberal,you will not join the many Indians who count the cost of rent for being allowed to sleep in my boss’s verandah,the cost of the food I get to eat after finishing up and the hand-me-down clothes I get as part of the remuneration. Some Indians even argue with pride that Indian government servants pay our husbands in India for the work we do here for them. I am told this is a violation of Indian exchange control laws,depriving the country of valuable foreign exchange that I could remit home,but more importantly,paying husbands for wives’ work is the bane of a nanny’s existence. My nanny friends from countries such as India,Cambodia and Thailand tell me that even when they worked back home their husbands would take away their earnings and blow it up on drinking and on other women.

Unlike the US,which nurtures organisations like yours — although you beat yourself up as being sanctimonious — those countries do not entail support systems for domestic servants. When they even think of such policies,middle-class lobbies warn them that such support would keep poor people out of jobs since the middle class cannot afford to pay more. The US,despite being branded “capitalist”,has not fallen prey to such lobbies. Those nations wear the badge of “socialism” in their constitutions but are happy to believe such theories without empirical study.

I can’t agree more when you say handcuffing is unnecessary. In my home country,if a parliamentarian were asked by airport security to show his photo ID at entry,he would throw a righteous fit for his privilege being violated. Back home,we never handcuff anyone with privileges. New York law enforcers indeed do not have any sense of discretion. I am told most policies in India are based on discretion and case-by-case assessments.

Sir,I sense a note of wickedness in how self-effacing you are when you say you do not truly care for our human rights. You have an amazing sense of humour when it comes to ridiculing your own work. I am unable to fathom how standing up for rights of maids and nannies would necessarily mean being opposed to innovation and enterprise. I am just an uneducated nanny and some of that humour does not permeate my brain.

With my native intelligence,I can tell you how important you are,particularly to nannies from nations like India,which stack up not just the emotional might of the indignation of the entire middle class against nannies,but also deploy the deep pockets of the Indian government’s treasury to teach us erring nannies the lesson of a lifetime. When you struggle to describe a nanny — you wrote to “foreign housekeeper/ babysitter” — you know that job description defies definition for nannies in India. They do everything from polishing shoes to changing diapers.

Consider this. A fellow Indian nanny who accused her employer of sexual harassment won a settlement. The Indian government paid $75,000 out of taxpayers’ funds — even Infosys did not do that for its star manager. Little wonder organisations like yours are tempted to fight employers whose governments liberally dole out funds from the exchequer for wrongdoing by their privileged diplomats.

Another Indian nanny was told if she did not fall in line,she would be slammed into a cargo container and packed off. She made the mistake of smiling in some photos and the Indian government showed that to courts in India as proof she wasn’t being harassed. Wonder how dowry death cases are tried there if a bride who has been burnt is caught smiling in a group photo. This nanny,with help from bleeding hearts like you,won a million-and-a-half dollars in damages. The Indian government sued her and her lawyers back home and got a stay order by telling the court that it was a dispute between two government employees.

I am told the Indian government is now planning to treat nannies like government servants so that our rights are out of reach of your support. But there is a catch. We would not get perks like pension. We will only be public servants on contract and the prevention of corruption law would be added ammunition to use against us. What chance then do we have on being deported to India? Our means do not match the Indian state’s power to fight litigation. Since India’s taxpayers fund our employers,folks like you get US taxpayers to pay for people like us. Don’t feel apologetic about it.

Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao even formally issued a zero-tolerance policy towards ill-treatment of maids. Yet,it did not stop. When the next Indian maid found the courage to approach human rights liberals like you,the state reprisal was stronger. The Indian state declared the nanny a wanted criminal and issued an arrest warrant to seek extradition to India.

Where would we be but for do-gooders like you,however sanctimonious you may sound in India? Indian diplomat bosses of nannies don’t have to spend a penny on legal disputes,even if the bosses are accused of having a chronic propensity to lie on oath.

Thank god I am not of Indian origin. My country takes action against its diplomats if they do wrong. But mine is not the third largest economy in the world,with delusions of prestige,making claims in global universities to celebrate “jugaad” as an Indian trait. So,dear SAHR Liberal,keep the faith. Where would we be but for you?

Sincerely,

Foreign housekeeper/ babysitter in New York

somasekhar sundaresan

The writer is a financial sector lawyer