From July to September 2024 the job site Indeed surveyed employers, job seekers and employees in India. “88% Indian professionals are contacted by someone from their office outside of business hours,” BW People reported. Of the workers, 85 percent received calls on holidays or sick days.
According to 79 percent, not replying could have consequences, “such as missed opportunities for advancement,” a damaged reputation or project delays.
In a story told across India, Lakshmana never slept during the fourteen years of his elder brother Rama’s exile. He stood guard over Rama and Sita day and night. His wife Urmila slept in his place for all fourteen years.
The story is not in Valmiki’s Ramayana or in Tulsidas’s version. The writer Devdutt Pattanaik traces it to the folk Ramayanas.
On September 13, 2022, the Department of Personnel and Training issued consolidated guidelines on how officials deal with members of Parliament and the state legislatures. Officials “should not ignore telephonic messages left for them by the Members of Parliament.” An officer should “rise to receive and see off a Member of Parliament/State Legislature visiting him.”
A similar instruction appeared in a letter of the Department in 2013.
In December 2022 the fantasy sports company Dream11 was reported to give every employee one week a year completely off work, logged out of Slack, email and even WhatsApp groups. It calls the week Unplug. “Any employee who contacts another employee during the “UNPLUG” period will be fined Rs 1 lakh,” Business Today reported.
In an excerpt from the book The Time Energy Toolkit, published by Scroll in July 2025, an employee who leaves the office at 6 p.m. hears a shout: “Half-day today!”
“Long work hours are equated with sincerity, ownership and drive,” the authors write. “They are celebrated, rewarded and expected.” Bank staff have a phrase for staying on: late sitting.
Two months after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, India TV reported on the new pace in the ministries in Delhi. Ministers insisted on punctuality. “Most senior officials are in office till 7 p.m. and their staff too stay put,” the report said on July 27, 2014.
In the Indian Army, a sahayak is a soldier assigned to an officer as a helper. In February 2017 a hidden-camera video showed sahayaks saying that officers made them polish shoes and walk dogs.
One of the soldiers in the video, Lance Naik Roy Mathew, the orderly of a colonel at Deolali, went missing on February 25. His body was found hanging in an abandoned barrack. The Army said it was probably suicide. His family suspected foul play.
Senior officers of Indian Railways had a “telephone attendant-cum-dak khalasi” at their homes, known as a bungalow peon. He answered the telephone, carried files and often did household work. In August 2020 the Railway Board stopped hiring new ones.
The officers’ association objected. Such a peon, it said, “serves the Railways and the nation 24×7 even on holidays, and weekly rest days.”
In 2023 Slack surveyed about 18,000 desk workers in several countries. One question was about “performative work,” the time spent looking busy. “India topped the list with 43% of professionals focusing on “performative work,”” NewsBytes reported.
In January 2026 a 29-year-old software developer in Gurgaon wrote on Reddit: “Laid off from Software Job just bcz I didn’t responded to manager’s message during holiday.” He said he had been in a high-altitude area with a weak signal over Christmas and New Year. His manager took his silence for avoidance.
Indian news sites, among them OdishaTV and Republic, reported the post. They did not verify his account.