Devyani Khobragade and the India-US diplomatic crisis - a case of much ado about nothing

The airwaves in the past few days have been dominated by the news of the diplomatic crisis between India and US over the treatment of a junior diplomat, Devyani Khobragade. It got way too much attention than it deserved and it became a rallying point for all political parties, no major party wanted to be left behind, especially with elections coming up soon. Anti-US sentiments work well in most parts of the world and the politicians in all countries are quick to latch on to it. So in the midst of all the smoke, let us try to look at the issue without any emotions. There are two issues here, one is the visa fraud by Devyani, and the other is about the way she was treated.

Devyani Khobragade is the Deputy Consul General in New York and was arrested on visa fraud charges (which is in the back-burner now). She gave false info when she filed the visa papers for her maid (Ms Richard) stating that she will pay her the minimum wage as per law, while she paid about a fourth of that only. She was arrested after there was a complaint to the police, but they arrested her when she was leaving her kids at school. She was then was strip searched by a female police officer, which to me was taking it a little too far on the police side. This became a blessing in disguise for her as she was able to turn the tables to become the victim instead of being the accused. One has to give credit to Ms Khobragade to turn the narrative around in her favor.

Clearly there was over reaction from all sides, and most by the political brass in India for obvious reasons. This is where all political parties had one agenda. Why did they not cry out loud when innocents are being raped on a regular basis in India? Or to get a Lokpal bill in place? There are so many reasons that Indian politicians should be ashamed of including rampant corruption, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, violence against women, lack of access to basic facilities.., the list can go on and on, and yet they found just this issue. As Seth and Amy would say on SNL, REALLY?, I mean REALLY Indian politicians and public, is this all you are concerned about? And REALLY Devyani, are you so naïve that you did not know you were committing visa fraud, REALLY?

The police for sure overreacted to a certain extent, especially with the strip/cavity search (if what is written in the media is true), though fact is she was strip searched by a female officer and not a male officer as was made out in the Indian media. They should have dealt with her in a milder manner. That still does not make her above law. The media over reacted too by making this a big headline and catapulting Devyani to fame. Same with the Indian public too who talk about this as an issue of morality and turn a deaf ear when an Indian commits heinous crimes, especially against women. Sure, the US has its own morality issues and in this case there is an element of it too, but why would they bring this up when it happens in the US? Why is the same public silent when women from other countries are raped in India on a regular basis, and we are talking of rape and not a strip search by a female police officer? Why don’t the same people protest when numerous women are raped by police themselves in India? For folks who have traveled around the world, especially around the US, a lot of people of color have been subjected to pat-downs. This is not the only morality issue, corruption is a morality issue too, and so is falsifying documents.

Now what does one think of the actual accusation of visa fraud? To me, it does not take an investigator to know that the maid was not being paid as was mentioned in the visa papers. Most house maids who have been brought in from India and other countries will agree to work for much lower than minimum wage. That does not make what Devyani did as lawful. Being a diplomat, she has to know that that it is plain wrong to give false information, and that if she still did it then she has to be ready to face the consequences. She is living in the US and has to abide by the US law. If she needed a domestic help, then pay her as per the law. If she tries to hire someone in the US then she will have to pay much more, so she tried to be smart by having her cake and eating it too. Her record is not blemish-less too, with both her and her father being cited in the Adarsh housing society scam. She has 11 or more properties, including in places as dispersed as from Maharashtra (majority is there) to Kerala to Uttar Pradesh, this does not seem so normal to me.

Finally, on the maid Ms Richard, was she hallucinating that she’d be paid close to $4k per month when she was asked to be a maid?, especially when she agreed on a much lower pay in India. So there is a possibility that she is trying to take advantage of her situation. One does not know if she was subjected to any harassment by Devyani and her family, but it does bring the plight of domestic servants who are brought like this and in many cases exploited. Indians should know this very well with a lot of examples of Indian women (especially from Kerala) going to the gulf countries to work as maid servants and being subjected to a lot of harassments. There were a few instances in the past 2 years of poor women from Kerala being subjected to extreme harassment in the middle-east countries. None of that got the media attention it really deserved, as that did not happen in the US. Those were much heinous crimes and should have been debated by the politicians and public alike. Sadly there was no outrage from the public, the politicians and the media alike. We should have taken a very strong stand against those countries, but we chose not to care. I guess it makes a lot of people feel good if they can find a reason to accuse the US, and the US has to be blamed too for its past hegemony and narrow-minded foreign policy decisions across the world over the past few decades. All said and done, there is no need to shed too much tears for Ms Devyani, she was smart enough to turn the narrative to her benefit and has most likely succeeded in evading the visa fraud charges. We cannot expect politicians to change, but one hopes that the public would protest for the just causes and not over react like in this instance, it was clearly a case of much ado about nothing.

-Ramanuja Iyer