Washing machines, refrigerators and other household durables got a leg up when the government decided to reduce the excise duty from the 60 per cent levels to a modest 15 per cent during the wave of liberalization in the early ’90s. It was reported that a Socialist party member stood up in the parliament to complain to the then PM, Narasimha Rao, that if washing machines became cheaper, thousands of poor women who were employed as domestic servants would lose their jobs. To which the erudite PM is reported to have replied, ‘Do you want us to be a nation of maids?
