Indian BPO workers face racial abuses frequently, claims Study

Every time her client hangs up, the young woman from Hyderabad goes to the washroom and weeps.

Then she dries her eyes and returns to her desk – to pick up her phone and her fake American identity and drawl once again. She

is one of the many workers in call centres who face racial abuse from people viewing them as “job thieves”, says a new study on business process outsourcing centres in India.

“It is a post-recession reality. Western clients are extremely cagey. If they think you are an Indian, their biggest fear is you are stealing their job and that everything is being outsourced,” said its author Sweta RajanRankin, from the University of Kent in the UK.

The study, released earlier this month, is based on ethnographic research with two global outsourcing firms operating call centres in India from 2010-12. In 2012, an estimated 3.3 lakh Indians worked in call centres which provide customer-related services, second only to the Philippines, which had 3.5 lakh such employees.

“Abuse? (It) happens almost daily… maybe one or two times in a day. During some point in the call, some people say ‘You Indians!!!’ etc,” the study quoted a BPO employee as saying.

The researcher said the study was also relevant in the context of recent developments in the United States and UK. “In terms of the current context, with Brexit in the UK and Trump in America, recession, pulling back of services, we have seen a resurgence of national politics... you might see much more customer abuse, much more racial abuse,” she said.

Rajan-Rankin said in the 1990s, when the companies came to India, they used “complete masking”, that is, ensured that the Indian identity should not be revealed at all.

“The reason for this is companies in the US are risk- averse… and want to portray to clients that customer service is taking place in the same country where the service is being provided,” she told PTI.

To help employees take on a westernised identity, many are sent to the US where they are trained in voice modulation and accents, as well on cultural reference points, such as baseball or film and TV shows like Baywatch and Friends.

“The rules of call agents don’t allow them to disclose that they are working in India, no matter what. As a result they get enormous amounts of abuse, which is often racial in nature,” said Rajan-Rankin.

Almost all the employees interviewed for the study said they were verbally cursed and abused.