Paper short abstract:

This paper will look at some of the issues related to employment and work of domestic servants in colonial India between the period of 1750s and 1850s.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will use two types of sources to understand the nature of domestic service in the early years of British colonial rule in India. Largely focussed on eastern and northern India, the first set will look at certain regulations passed by the colonial state that dealt with wages, work etc. The second consists of unpublished letters and diaries that were written by the East India Company officials to their family members back home in England.

The paper will specifically focus on the British male chummeries as the most popular type of household in this period - an aspect that has not been widely discussed in the existing historiography. Within this household, it appears that domestic servants were not only functionally important for providing different kinds of services but at times were also instrumental in informing the ethnographic understanding of British officials towards India and Indians.