At a Luxury Complex in India, the Maids and the Madams Go to War.
NOIDA, India — The madams in the luxury gated community went to yoga classes and toddler playgroups; the maids soundlessly whisked away dirty dishes and soiled laundry before retreating, at night, to a nearby shantytown of tin sheds and plastic tents.
This kind of arrangement has persisted across India for decades, in apparent harmony.
But early on Wednesday, at the Mahagun Moderne in Noida, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India’s capital, the madams and the maids went to war.
A dispute between a maid and her employer erupted into a full-blown riot, as hundreds of the maid’s neighbors, armed with rocks and iron rods, forced their way into the complex and stormed her employer’s apartment. In response, thousands of families have locked their maids out, saying they can no longer trust them in their homes. . .
Arun Kumar Singh, Noida’s superintendent of police, said it was striking how quickly the homeowners had turned on their employees, accusing them — falsely, he said — of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
“I asked them a question: How did they then find shelter inside your house for all these years?” he said. “It’s like this, the day we have a difference with our brother, that’s the day our brother turns into a history-sheeter, a Naxalite,” referring to ex-convicts and Maoist insurgents. “Otherwise, before this, he is our brother.”'
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/world/asia/at-a-luxury-complex-in-india-the-maids-and-the-madams-go-to-war.html?
