The Indian dislike for 'dignity of labour'

Narendra Modi may have been the son of a tea-stall owner and Sonia Gandhi may have been a waitress but the truth is that most of us have scant respect for those who do menial jobs, says Seema Goswami.

I don't quite know why, but for some reason most Indians seem completely unacquainted with the concept of 'dignity of labour'. It could be because we are so used to paying other people a pittance to do our dirty work for us. It could be a hangover of the caste system, in which manual labour was the province of those way down on the sliding caste scale. But whatever the deep, sociological or even anthropological reason, the truth is that most of us have scant respect for those who do menial jobs, and certainly no intention of granting them any dignity as they try to earn a decent wage.

Seema-Goswami