Lather, rinse, record: A new book traces the ancient history of the dhobis of Delhi

They’ve been here since the founding of Shahjahanabad, says SM Channa. Her book explores their world then, and how they are now being edged out of their city.

There are so many Delhis, piled one on the other, or jostling for room: the walled city, the modern-era capital, the city of poets, city of traders, city of mantris, city of… washermen?

In a new book, social anthropologist Subhadra Mitra Channa tells the story of Delhi’s many transformations through the eyes of one of its oldest and least-studied communities: the dhobis of Old Delhi.

Channa, 73, remembers first engaging with this community in 1974, when she was pursuing a

At the Yamuna river: The cover of Channa’s book, Dhobis of Delhi.

Ancient history

In her book, Channa traces the origins of the washermen of Old Delhi to the founding of the Mughal capital of Shahjahanabad, in the 17th century. At the time, they formed part of the old jajmani system in which members of lower castes performed services for members of dominant castes, in exchange for payment in kind.

In this era, the dhobi wasn’t just a launderer of clothes but also of one’s soul. “[He] essentially absorbed the pollution created by the bodies of the upper-caste men and women, through sweat, semen, blood, and by menstruation and childbirth,” Channa writes.

Over time, these considerations of purity and pollution receded. The introduction of easier-to-clean synthetic fabrics, and of course washing machines, took the dhobi out of the equation in many wealthy households. Rather than recede, the community reinvented.

“During the 1970s, as the garment-export market opened up, it was the dhobis who were washing, ironing and packing the clothes before they were shipped out,” says Channa. “As the city expanded and small hotels were set up in Paharganj, Karol Bagh etc, it’s the dhobis that turned up to wash their linen.”

Even at today’s professional laundry services, the proprietor might be a businessman and the staff may be an assorted group, but the person doing the actual washing is usually a dhobi. Channa the notion of inherited skill is at least partly responsible: there is a widespread sense that traditional washermen know how to get clothes clean because they are using special techniques handed down through the generations.

The dhobis take pride in this idea, she adds. They take pride in their identity. This is something modern India doesn’t make room for, or indeed acknowledge, she adds.

Only lately has the world of academia been adjusting, with a certain measure of surprise, to the idea that one can want to hold on to aspects of identity and culture such as one’s marginalised profession and cuisine.

Pulling at a thread

Among the book’s most interesting sections is the one on dhobi society. Both men and women have important roles in the work.

Like many marginalised castes, this one draw from the Bhakti and Sufi movements. They worship deities from the Hindu pantheon alongside ones they claim as their own, such as Khatu Shyam, the grandson of Bhima via his “demoness” wife Hidimba.

Dhobis offer goats in sacrifice at the Nizamuddin dargah during weddings, and make offerings at shrines in their homes called the “ala”, dedicated to the mystic spirits Badha Miyan and Nanhe Miyan of the Sufi tradition. Hindu and Muslim washermen remain part of the same community, sharing ghats but maintaining separate living quarters.

In recent years, the community has seen young inheritors exit the traditional livelihood (a trend visible across traditional livelihoods, in India and around the world). “There is definitely a Sanskritisation of the lifestyle too. Many dhobis have become vegetarian, for example, and are adopting mainstream Hindu rituals,” Channa says. “Most continue to revere the Sufi saints, at least privately, so I’m not sure how deep this transformation goes.”

Meanwhile, the community faces new threats.

Amid random urban development and the intensifying pollution of the Yamuna, knee-jerk policies have severed the dhobis’ relationship with their river, over time. Gentrification is edging them out of the walled city.

“Our policymakers visualise Delhi as a global city, a corporate hub, and there is no place for this community in their vision,” she says. “The dhobis keep telling me their livelihood is in danger, not because the market doesn’t offer them opportunities, but because the state won’t recognise these opportunities as legitimate ones.”