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22 Oct, 6 tweets, 3 min read
A #Dalit "servant" girl is found dead in her upper-caste Delhi employer's home, family is not told about her death, police cremate her body forcefully, beat up Caravan reporter writing on it.
No front-page or prime time news about it.
But remember Devyani Khobragade' story? >>
One reason that story about an Indian woman being paid less than minimum wage in the US received HUGE coverage is the international case. But another equally important reason to my mind is that Khobragade is a Dalit reserved quota officer. Suchitra Vijayan doesn't say it but >>
I do. The anger about reservations in the coveted Indian civil service is huge. I hold no brief to defend Khobragade and I am not defending her. I am only asking, why such little news about a Dalit "servant" girl's death?
Here's @suchitrav's piece >>
rediff.com/news/report/in…
The other time I remember a case involving the sexual harassment of domestic help in Delhi got round-the-clock coverage is when a Saudi diplomat was involved.
Again, reason is simple: barbaric sex-hungry Sheikh stereotype >>
ndtv.com/india-news/tor…
What happens when Indian upper-caste and/or upper class employers harass, rape, abuse their "servants"?
Reporters are beaten as Caravan saw.
However, Mrinal Sen made a film on it. Nothing happened to the employers. But Sen noted the hypocrisy >>
sohinichattopadhyay.com/2020/06/kharij…
The Indian attitude to "servants" is uniquely hypocritical. We see the help as "heroic", "part of the family", "uncomplaining". Hindi film projects the hypocrisy of this fundamentally abusive relationship with the fab hypocrisy of Bollywood
thehindu.com/society/covid-…

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More from @sohinichat

Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
22 Oct
I hear an inherent sneer when Indians, news orgs says: "Even Bangladesh's economy is doing better than India."
Why this "even"?
The polite way to see this "even" is that it is used because Bangladesh is a younger country, formed 24 years after India >>
The real reason Indians say "even Bangladesh" is because this country is seen as a nation of maids and rickshaw drivers providing the dirt cheap labour that keeps New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Calcutta running.
The real reason is also poor, lungi-clad, dark-skinned Muslims >>
"Even" is also used for Pakistan, but less so that Bangladesh. Pakistanis are fair-skinned, taller, more aristocratic.
In the popular imagination constructed by Bollywood, India and Pakistan are blood brothers severed by Partition. Indians can abide fair-skinned Pakistan >>
Read 11 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
21 Oct
There's been a slew of editorials in prestige publications) about Bollywood's inclusive values and how Modi are destroyed it.
This is the wrong way of looking at it. Bollywood has always broadcast Dilli's politics. In the Nehruvian years, it was secular socialism >>
After Liberalisation, it was the NRI romance establishing Indian culture in global capitals. In the Modi years, it is Hindu pride in history and the muscular Hindu nation-state vanquishing terror in the capitals of Islamicate: Istanbul, Dubai, Tangiers, Kabul, Central Asia >>
Bollywood exists to broadcast Dilli (= central govt) narrative. Why else do you need a Hindi-language industry in a Marathi land with a Marathi industry?
I have written this in multiple essays. Here is a brief list. How nationalism took over Hindi cinema
livemint.com/Leisure/b59Z5F…
Read 9 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
18 Oct
#Tanishq ad: In January 2006, a prequel to the violence that unfolded next year in Nandigram in 2007 and developments in Singur, 14 tribal persons and a policeman were killed in a firing to protest the takeover of tribal land by Rotten #Tata's company >>
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubanesw…
This Amnesty report from a year after the firing notes that the fine, upstanding Tatas in collusion with the Odisha govt
a) grabbed land with poor compensation
b) provided no information
c) didn't invite them for consultation >>
amnesty.org/download/Docum…
The Times of India story written ten years after the massacre mentions that local residents had not really got jobs with the good, decent Tata plant despite assurances. >>
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubanesw…
Read 8 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
15 Oct
#TanishqJewelry: Columbia University published a report on abuse at #Tata Tea's plantations in 2014. These plantations are under an entity called APPL, managed by World Bank guidelines. But APPL means Tata plantations. Highlights from the report >>
web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/…
"the management warned the team not
to trust what [tea] workers said because they were
"just like cattle, unintelligent, prone to mob mentality". At Namroop, the plantation doctor said we had to understand that the workers had "lower IQ".
Pg 26 here >> web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/…
Columbia's report found that the World Bank's pvt investment arm did not scrutinise the Tatas' compliance with the law because of the group's "outspoken commitment to corporate social responsibility".
Important to note this: Tatas get huge credit for TIFR, IISC, philanthropy >>
Read 5 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
28 Jul
The chocolate is slightly salty, but unlike those that come embedded with crystals of sea salt, the saltiness is uniform here. Deliciously so.

Like mildly sweetened peanut butter, with that same dreamy creamy texture.
For a certified dark chocolate lover, I am smitten
The chocolate is produced by the same co-operative in Anand that is at the heart of Amul
But the push for the use of camel milk came largely from the NGO Sahjeevan, which works with communities in the Rann of Kutch, @amitangshu tells me. Their focus areas are pastoral societies +
biodiversity and water. Camel milk is a staple of some Rann communities. It's more expensive to produce than cow's milk as I understand. Camels produce less milk per unit, for one. Also, camels produce milk largely when their foal are nearby. Thus, mom + kids must be maintained>
Read 8 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
1 Jul
#DoctorsDayIndia marks the birth + death day of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, a fabled doctor in Calcutta, and West Bengal's second chief minister after Independence. He was in office for 14 years. The story about him goes that he could diagnose a patient by their walk to his table >> Sourced from Wikimedia Commons
Apparently, he planned his 'chamber' such that the distance between the door and his table was significant and he would observe the patient as they walked. This created the Sherlock Holmesian myth that famous doctors like to cultivate: that they can diagnose patients by seeing >
their faces. He was known to be fond of Jyoti Basu's father, a medical practitioner called Nishikanta Basu, and the reason why Basu sr. was aghast at his son's Communist values. But there you go: a personal link between two famed Bengali chief ministers, Roy and Jyoti Basu >>
Read 12 tweets

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