Servitude

I hate to be the one who is always criticizing, and never appreciating. Certainly, no matter where one lives, there is that which you love, and that which you don't. The same with America, the same with India, the same with Japan. Perhaps it's my nature to complain too much, perhaps I should write more about what I love about India, but, well, everybody likes to complain. Here's one thing I just can't get over India. If there is a stray Indian who passes over this post, I'd like to here what you think.


Servitude. What is servitude? Every word, every action, has two ways of being interpreted, and two ways of being carried out. Understanding servitude in one way, one can carry it out with a sense of helping others and doing good in the world. Understood in community, it is helping something bigger than ourselves, helping the functioning of community and society by doing service for it, maybe volunteering to teach kids, helping out with community events, being part of the neighborhood watch group. That is selfless service, nobody can do it all the time, but everybody can do it once in a while. That is something that needs to be educated, it certainly never came naturally to me. It was only with maturity, when I realized that if it wasn't for service; anything from free buses for First Night on Boston's New Year Eve, to help with college applications at the Copley library, that I realized the immense importance of it. That is the type of service that is taught and learned from the society that one lives in, and often takes place within the context of religion.

While there is this type of service, good for the soul and certainly good for society, there is another type of service, found all too often in the world, which is exploitative, and rather mean.

That is the service that I have seen here in India all too often. In India, those without money are treated very different than those with money. One you must talk to with respect, and with fairness. The other, you must talk to with disrespect, and often, unfairness. They are the laborers in India, and they serve those, not just physically but also mentally, which are wealthier. They are the rickshaw drivers, the clothes washers, the house cleaners, the waiters (it’s very annoying to see a little 8 year old kid saying to a man of 30 years “Hey you! Bring the water, make sure it’s cold, I’ll only drink it if it’s cold, and bring it fast!), the roadside tailors. It’s very annoying to watch how they are treated. Some of it is just India, in this culture, people don’t waste time with formalities, and sometimes I view that as refreshing. People treat you honestly; I can't really recall ever feeling like someone was fake to me. But some of it is that whole coolie attitude, that whole thing called status. People who are the rickshaw drivers are poor, they have low status, and therefore, they are a different class of people. For me, it comes out as a glaring double standard, an identifiable social wrong. It’s something like racism, or sexism, where someone is treated differently just because of their skin color or sex. If you talk to most Indians today, they will certainly tell you that the caste system is almost non-existent. That is a lie. I don’t know enough about the social demographics of India to speak about it comprehensively here, but I have volunteered in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in India and have worked with people of lower castes being denied access to barber shops, the sale of their goods, and even admission into schools, because of their caste. What castes are the people who drive the cycle rickshas in Agra, who clean the dishes (often kids) at roadside dhabas (small restaurants) on GT road, or who sell the hair clips and cosmetic goods on makeshift tables in the local town markets I have no idea. But at this point, even if you are not facing this disrespect because you are a lower caste, you are facing it because you are a poor worker.

It’s classism, and it’s ever strong and rampant here in India.
CIassism is found all over the world. It’s certainly found in America, people do hold low opinions of others simply because they are less wealthy. But those people in America, at least not in the workplace, cannot be treated as if their life is valueless. I was always taught to respect people for their hard work, no matter what type of work it is that’s being done. Yet even if a person doesn't respect people for that, they certainly can’t get away with treating them as less than them in work transactions. In India, those working in service are usually barked orders at, they do not have much power, and due to the lack of their wealth and education (know your rights man!) they can't refuse or fight back. You can see the sting in them when addressed like dogs, they want to say something, but they have to think long-term, they have to make that dollar, and the one barking is the one with the dollar. To sum it up, here, the people in the “serving” professions ARE the servants, and they are treated, with the curt replies and loud voices, as if they are of a lesser race. It’s a bit ridiculous, for someone who has been ingrained with the idea that all people are equal, when obviously, in India, they are not.