Volume-II, Issue-III, January 2026
Volume-II, Issue-III, January, 2026 |
Received: 01.12.2025 | Accepted: 20.12.2025 | ||
Published Online: 31.01.2026 | Page No: 647-655 | ||
DOI: 10.69655/atmadeep.vol.2.issue.03W.254 | |||
বাংলার ঘর-গৃহস্থালি ও চাকর-বাকর: দাসবৃত্তির ইতিহাস ও পরিণতি বিষয়ক একটি তথ্যগত সংক্ষিপ্ত আলোচনা তুলিকা বণিক, গবেষক, ভারতীয় তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি প্রতিষ্ঠান, গুয়াহাটি, অসম, ভারত |
Life and Servant System in Bengal: A Factual Brief Discussion on the History and Consequences of Servitude Tulika Banik, Research Scholar, Indian Institute of Information technology Guwahati (IIITG), Guwahati, Assam, India | ||
ABSTRACT | ||
This paper critiques the history, structure, and socio-cultural implications of domestic servitude in colonial Bengal, situating it within global patterns of household labour. This discussion highlights how servants historically mediated the macro-structures of political and economic power and the micro-structures of everyday domestic life. The essay examines how industrialisation, demographic shifts, and the spread of Victorian ideals reshaped household arrangements in India during the nineteenth century. The analysis traces India’s older traditions of servitude—from epic literature, temple culture, and feudal households—to the emergence of “jhī–chākar” as a regular presence in middle-class Bengali homes. It demonstrates how caste, gender, religion, region, and racial hierarchies structured the recruitment and treatment of servants, producing multilayered inequalities even within servant groups. It explores how domestic work, especially for women, often involves not only physical labour but also sexual vulnerability, reinforced by the employer’s social and economic power. To theorise servitude in this paper, the essay draws on literary and cinematic examples from Rabindranath Tagore’s memoirs as well as Bengali films such as Deya-Neya, Puja, and Galpo Holeo Satyi. It explores the cultural representation of servants as comic figures, romantic impossibilities, loyal caregivers, and even moral agents. These portrayals underscore the tension between dependency and distance characterising servant–master relationships, and unspoken hierarchies that continue to shape contemporary domestic labour in South Asia. | ||
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