There's a striking scene in Naipaul's "An Area of Darkness" where he describes a team "cleaning" a staircase, and really all they're doing is sloshing dirty wat

There's a striking scene in Naipaul's "An Area of Darkness" where he describes a team "cleaning" a staircase, and really all they're doing is sloshing dirty water around and making it as bad or worse than when they started -- but no matter, it is "clean" because persons of the right caste performed each step of the work.