Thread by @gauravsabnis

Almost any elite Indian's dream of a "developed" India will have Nordic type infrastructure and safety and low crime. But still daily domestic help that is paid in Indian wage terms, cheap autos and cabs, cheap food delivery etc.

And therein lies the disconnect between the urban elites (especially Modi lovers) and the protesting farmers. They seem almost outraged that these farmers look better off than the emaciated ones in old newsreels, but are still protesting. Bhakts consider them "uppity".

The subtext of the lofty sounding "Jai jawaan, jai kisaan" is that it is the duty of soldiers and farmers to be overworked and underpaid. And now that farmers don't look emaciated, they are suddenly thought of as fat cats. By people sitting in westernized apartment complexes.

One of the most honest things I've heard is when a friend decided to move back to India after almost a decade in the UK. She said the main reason was "I'm doing well financially but I'm unlikely to ever do well enough to hire daily drivers, maids, cooks, AND nannies in UK."

You can do the exact same white collar job in the West or in India, and your life will be identical in terms of your house, car, phone, gadgets, eating out, etc. But in India, you also get a whole army of cheap labor that relies on keeping the masses too poor to demand more.

Not a single leader, not even the most fiery communist, has communicated this fundamental disconnect between the two Indian dreams. That India's "development" will make the lives of its elites less comfortable than they currently are. Stop taking cheap labor for granted.

On my last Pune visit, a friend's mom waxed nostalgic about how in the 80s, you could afford bai, driver, aaya even on a "bank job" salary, but "nowadays some of these people earn almost as much as a bank clerk 😤". She said this sitting in a home 5x their 80s home.

"Foreign mein kya mast dignity of labour hai" in the streets.
"Yeh delivery log ka lift alag hai, watchman" in the sheets.

Relevant bizarre thing I heard on last India visit. We were talking salary caps in sports league and how rich IPL teams are known to circumvent them by giving in-demand players something extra "off the books". And a friend said "like our maid and nanny!"
I'm like, err, what?

This friend, after moving into a new rental place, hired a maid and a nanny at whatever rate they asked. And later, gave them whatever raises they asked. A couple of years later, she and her husband were told by the landlord that the residents association were upset at this.

And some upper limits for domestic help salaries were placed after heated battles on their building whatsapp group. So the maid and nanny are told to pretend that they are being paid as much as others. But she pays them more "on the side".

How to even... 🤷🏽‍♂️

Whatsapp has really weaponized the worst aspects of Resident/Tenant Associations in India, huh? The stuff I've seen and heard in recent years is just batshit.

The idea that anyone except a sports league commissioner can justifiably say "it is against the rules to pay this much of your own money to people you hire" can only make sense in indian society.