Attack on Sureshbhai Patel: Alabama governor's apology shouldn't whitewash US bigotry

When the governor of Alabama says sorry to the Indian government, it is a big deal. States are loath to apologise even for pogroms and wars, let alone roughing up a citizen of a different country. Maher Arar was detained during a transit stop at JFK airport in New York on his way back home to Canada from Tunisia in 2002 and held without charges in solitary confinement for almost two weeks in the US. The US thought he was an al-Qaeda member and deported him to Syria where he was detained for almost a year in a rat-infested cell and tortured. The Syrian government declared him innocent, the Canadians formally apologised for his ordeal. The US however dismissed his lawsuit. The Supreme Court refused to hear his case. Condoleezza Rice merely said “We do not think this was handled particularly well.” Arar and his family remained on the No Fly list in the US. Sorry is often the hardest word for a state to utter. Therefore it’s no trifling matter that Alabama governor Robert Bentley has apologised to India for the way his police treated Sureshbhai Patel when they threw him onto the ground and left him paralysed. In a letter addressed to the Indian consul general in Atlanta, the governor regrets “the unfortunate use of excessive force” and hopes “Mr Patel will regain full use of his legs”. He asked the Director of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to commence a parallel investigation alongside the one being conducted by the FBI. And he went onto assure the Indian government and the citizens of Indians residing and working in the state that “we will see that justice is done”. [caption id=“attachment_2097173” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Patel has been left partially paralysed. Image courtesy: Twitter[/caption] None of this will help Patel regain use of his legs faster but it’s a lot better than the usual blame-the-victim, shield-the-perpetrator response to these kinds of tragedies. But it’s worth remembering that none of this would have happened if Patel had not been paralysed by being thrown down to the ground. That too would have been “excessive force” but the police would have escaped unscathed. The paralysis made him a cause celebre. Actually as we know full well even when the excessive force results in deadly injuries, law enforcement more often than not escape scot free. It still remains to be seen what the investigations find but as of now the state is belatedly (and unusually) making all the right noises. This is no doubt a testimonial to the enormous efforts of all kinds of civil rights organisations, Indian groups and ordinary citizens who jumped into the fray. The horrifying video of Patel lying on the ground was circulated on social media and told its own story. But it is also tempting to read this as proof of India’s power these days. It finally can boast that it is a country that cannot be pushed around. If Devyani Khobragade had left the Indian ego bruised, Sureshbhai Patel has helped give it a boost. Coming on the heels of Barack Obama’s visit to India for Republic Day, the Sureshbhai Patel incident was especially embarrassing. The Newshour in India with Arnab Goswami thundered, “Is this tolerance, Mr. Obama?” The apology from the governor is completely warranted and indisputably deserved and full credit should go to all those in the US and in India who kept the pressure on the case and refused to let it be pushed under the rug. But we should also be careful not to draw the wrong lesson from it – that it proves that Indians are the model minority, the “good” immigrant and therefore especially deserving of this apology. Everyone to whom something like this happen deserves an apology. This “excessive” use of force is commonplace in America and all kinds of people have borne the brunt of it. The language complication also proved deadly for Cau Bich Tran, an emotionally troubled Vietnamese woman in San Jose who was shot and killed in her own kitchen in 2003 by the police as she waved a vegetable peeler. The grand jury did not indict the officer but eventually the family decided to settle their law suit with the city. Richard Konda, an activist with the Coalition for Justice and Accountability told the San Francisco Chronicle “The question came up: How could a young mother, less than 5 feet tall, really be a credible threat? How could it end that way?” That’s not that different from the question being asked of the Alabama police after it threw Patel to the ground. This apology should really serve as a reminder of the many instances where none is given. Indian Americans should remember that what the Patel case showed was that no one is immune from bigotry and cultural misunderstanding. We are all in the same boat. After 9/11 when Iranians were rounded up for registration and many sent to deportation centres, the community was horrified. A wealthy and well-established community it had never imagined it would be rounded up like undocumented immigrants. In San Diego where many of those incidents happened worried Iranians went for help to a community they knew had experience of this but little connection with – the Latinos. A Latino paper La Prensa opened up its pages for the Iranians as a resource creating La Prensa de Persia – a remarkable story of communities coming together instead of setting themselves apart from each other. It’s a good lesson to remember. The apology from Alabama’s governor is welcome and warranted. And there is no reason to be apologetic about it. But it becomes all the more reason for Indian Americans to stand up and be counted when the member of another community suffers the same fate, or worse, thanks to “excessive force”. The apology can be read as an achievement, but it’s also a responsibility.