We most often talk about young adults in the United States and other European countries living their lives on their own terms without being depended on their parents. In India, young adults stay with their parents and are dependent on them even after marriage. I have felt bad for a long time for depending on my dad too heavily but I never had any options at all.
This is because India has no dignity of labour.
According to Wikipedia, “The dignity of labour indicates that all types of jobs are respected equally, and no occupation is considered superior/inferior.”
In European countries, The story is different. When a President walks in, the security guard says, “Good morning, Mr President.” And the President wishes the guard back. If a guard does the same thing in India, they will get fired the same day.
This is the place where one’s social status is determined by where you work than how much you earn. When overpowering a person belonging to a lower socio-economic class, we often resort to saying like, “You don’t know who my father is.” It could be a hangover of the class system which existed during the colonial era – when labour meant serving your masters and thus you could treat labourers as poorly as you wanted to.
During the summer break after class 10, I decided to look for a part-time job to earn some pocket money. It’s not that my dad was unwilling to pay for my expenses but I passionately wanted to break away from the norms. I come from an economically well-to-do family. My dad was a Divisional General Manager at BSNL. My mother is a school teacher and I am the only child.
I tried getting a job everywhere, from Internet cafes to dress shops and even petrol pumps. Everywhere, I was turned down because I was from an economically well-off middle-class family. I was most often sent back with lectures on how I should concentrate on studies and that I was ruining my parents’ reputation.
I never understood why these folks were so concerned about my family’s reputation. Someone who happened to be a family friend even called up by grandparents and informed them that I was looking for such jobs.
It’s perceived that when you belong to an economically well-off family, there is no need of taking job blue collar jobs, which is taken by people with no choice of getting any other job.
I often feel that most of you might have faced such an ordeal while looking for a part-time job, especially those from an upper-middle-class family. School going kids working as a part-time worker in a restaurant or a clothing store is seen as a taboo.
In India, we don’t have a culture of working in restaurants or gas stations while doing your college studies. The lack of dignity perceived in those jobs is probably the reason. You only have to see how even urban educated Indians behave with their domestic staff to know this to be true. Having grown up in wealthy families with a lot of privilege, we start looking down on these people. We think that they overcharge us every time and we are critical of their work.
I managed to get a job in a petrol pump owned by a family friend, where I was not made to do anything. The staff over there was clearly instructed not make me engage in any hard labour.
Later, when I decided to leave, I was offered a paycheck which I politely refused. I felt that I didn’t deserve it. I never could find any job after that. I was asked the same question in many other places. I was even discouraged by my friends for the same. Fortunately, I have parents who never asked: “Why do you want to work when we are alive?” They were pretty cool about it.
Feudalism and the caste discrimination still exist in India. One can dehumanise labour, especially manual labour and most heinously, the work of cleaning whether it’s domestic work, garbage collection or horrific manual scavenging.
We still live with the colonial mindset of thinking that getting selected for Civil Service, a government job or a job at an MNC to be the only dignified jobs for college graduates.
I always admired the way young adults in other countries got to live their lives after 18 without being dependent on their parents. Their children work hard for a decent wage to put oneself through college, while in India we say, “Why should I when my parents can afford to pay for my expenses?” A student working at a part-time job is probably countered with the question that, “Are your parents too poor?”
While growing up in a privileged middle-class household, I realised that labourers and maids were the ones who worked super hard and their effort and contribution to the world is unacknowledged and disrespected. Who would want to work like that?
This reminds me that right-wing trolls attacked Sonia Gandhi for working as a waitress during her studies in Cambridge. Of course, how can someone who worked hard part-time to be able to get through college head our country, right?
When I decide to have a son or daughter, I want them to do things differently. I want them to take up responsibility from a younger age; to live their lives on their own terms. I don’t want them to make the same mistakes I did of depending on their parents even after graduating from college.
I hope that all of you reading this will set an example for your children to follow.