বলর ঘর-গহসথল ও চকর-বকর: দসবততর ইতহস ও পরণত বষয়ক একট তথযগত সকষপত আলচন

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 Sotyi.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.