Beyond the Hegemonic Veil: A case for Subaltern Counter-Publics as intervention in India’s care labour norms

Legal and regulatory frameworks have been designed around a male-centric model of labour, including what standard employment relationships and obligations look like. In this context, the labour of women in the private sphere is dubbed as duty and the one in the public sphere is maintained to be inferior to that of men. This reflects in how domestic labour, both paid and unpaid, is treated in India. But these perceptions are not just limited to public narratives, but reflect in the legal norms followed in courtrooms. While generous compensations are given to the family of homemakers after her death under compensatory jurisprudence in tort, the same labour when taken account of as individual contributions do not amount for productive work. The paper argues for the use of subaltern counter-public narratives in art, academics, social movements and governance through reimagined legal norms and policy decisions.