Khobragade case: Why the maid isn't the issue

It is interesting that whenever one raises a question-mark over the conduct of the US in the Devyani Khobragade case, our ever-contrarian (or is it moralistic?) media brings up the issue of how we treat our own domestic help, and how we overwork or underpay them. Sure, there is a need to discuss this, but as I have told several people on Twitter yesterday, the time to discuss this is later - after we have won the diplomatic confrontation with the US first. The time to discuss corruption in defence purchases is not at the height of the Kargil war, but after winning it. It is important to remember that the main thing is the main thing and stay focused. We have a lifetime to discuss the ill-treatment of domestic help, but right now it is a diversionary tactic. One could, for example, equally ask why the maid and her husband (Philip Richard) have been given US visas in a jiffy just days before Khobragade’s arrest (the US has given an explanation, see below). Visa rules can obviously be bent when Uncle Sam wills it. But these are diversions. The main thing in the Khobragade affair is to tell the US that you cannot treat the diplomats of friendly countries this way. You cannot treat a friend as a vassal. You cannot throw a local law at a friend and abuse his trust. Once we have sorted this issue out with Uncle Sam we can discuss maids, nannies, drivers and the rights of domestic help and self-flagellate as much as we want. [caption id=“attachment_1296165” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  We need to win the diplomatic war on the Khobragade issue.AP[/caption] The other issue people keep bringing up is the one of robust application of the law. Why should we complain if the US is only applying its normal laws and procedures to someone they think has contravened them. When asked whether Khobragade was strip-searched or subjected to the indignity of a “cavity search”, US Marshal Service spokesperson Nikki Credic confirmed the “strip search” and not the cavity bit, but spoke of the resultant indignities as “standard arrestee intake procedures”. I like the phrase “standard arrestee intake procedures”. Sounds so clinical and neutral. But it takes no genius to tell us that the law is often an ass - and any Marshal with the IQ of a backward rabbit could have known the underpaying nannies does not warrant such body searches - even when the law allows it. So to those who bring forth this we-have-broken-their-law argument, the simple answer is this: fine, let us now apply stringently all our own stupid laws to every US diplomat or non-diplomat residing in India. Let us tail every US embassy car and zealously issue parking tickets and impose the highest fines and call them to police chowkies to collect their driving licences on Sundays. Let us also make sure the cop concerned has a family emergency when someone comes to collect his or her licence. Let us issue a warrant for the arrest of the US Marshal Service personnel who handled Khobragade since under the Prevention of Atrocities Against SC/STs Act any such insult has to result in an arrest, even if it is bailable. (I have known of a nationalised bank chairman in India who has been arrested for allegedly insulting a Dalit). While we can rest assured that the US is not going to send those marshals over, we can issue red corner notices and sentence them in absentia for non-appearance in connection with due process of the law. Let us also prosecute the US government for infringing Indian privacy laws and impose fines on Uncle Sam, Google, and other cyber companies. Let us use the obnoxious Section 66A of the Information Technology Act – vicariously used against two Palghar girls for making an innocuous Facebook entry after the death of Bal Thackeray – to target US nationals in India for all their transgressions. Let us give the Padma Vibhushan to Edward Snowden for disclosing the level of prying by the US in India. Let us give asylum to both Snowden and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Let us arrest any US embassy or national accused of a crime and handcuff him and parade him with a sack or lungi cloth over his head - exactly the way we treat our own arrestees. Let us follow standard operating “intake procedures” specifically with US nationals. Let us identify every possible US embassy official who we think is a CIA spy and pack him off as persona non grata (PNG) – of course the US will retaliate, but that is no skin off our nose. We can always send replacements. US Secretary of State John Kerry is understood to have expressed regret to the NSA, but this is not the time to be mollified by private regrets - we need a public expression of contrition from Uncle Sam. Preet Bharara, the American of Indian origin behind the arrest of Khobragade, has tried to put the record straight on the issue, but he has just remained holier-than-thou on the issue of why the Richards were given visas. He claimed that there was an attempt to “silence her, and attempts were made to compel her to return to India”. We can’t be sure of this, but one thing is clear: the US will stick to its claim that it is only enforcing the law. He should know that David Headley broke Indian laws and helped plan 26/11, and the US is still protecting him. He cannot be brought to justice here. The US will follow the law when it wants to and abandon it when it suits its purposes. The US only respects real power - and that is the point of the Khobragade affair. So let us do our job like they are doing theirs. It is time to use our laws against them. Let us also follow the basic principle of reciprocity. Give them exactly the same concessions they give us. The US is no friend of ours till it proves otherwise in letter and spirit. It is time we stopped behaving like fools.