Arresting the Indian diplomat was justified. She isn't the victim, her maid is | Ritwik Deo | Comment is free | theguardian.com
Arresting the Indian diplomat was just. She isn't the victim, her maid is
Activists of a frontline Hindu organisation protest against the arrest and treatment of Devyani Khobragade outside the US embassy in Bhopal, India. Photograph: Sanjeev Gupta/EPA
It takes a lot to get Indian politicians united, but from the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party to the ruling Congress party, all have
issued the strongest condemnation of the US government in the way it
dealt with a female Indian diplomat in the US.
Devyani Khobragade, the deputy consul general for political, economic, social and women's affairs was handcuffed and strip-searched when being arrested for submitting false visa documentation. The US government contends that they were well within their rights to exercise a court arrest warrant as the junior diplomat did not enjoy full immunity.
Yet here's the point most in
India are missing: Khobragade isn't the victim here, her maid is. Not one Indian politician, not one Indian media station highlighted the real story about paying your domestic help a mere $3.31 an hour (in a country where the
minimum wage is $7.25 and the diplomat stated on official documents that she would pay the maid about
$9.75 an hour).
America is far from an egalitarian state. However, at least it tries. The media furore in India, the cancelled appointments with the US delegation and the obligatory tramping of the stars and stripes on Indian streets shouldn't come as a shock to anyone familiar with India's sensitivity towards the treatment of one of its educated and urbane middle class representatives abroad.
The Indian establishment is one that demands VVIP treatment; no security checkpoints for them, chauffeured cars with flashing lights and diverted traffic in rush hour are mandatory. Somnath Chatterjee, former speaker of the Indian parliament, once
cancelled his trip to Australia when told he would have to go through airport security. He called it an affront to India. For a middle class Indian
babu to be frisked is unimaginable.
Compare that to how Indian maidservants – the
aayahs and the
bhaiyas – live. They are the early risers and the last ones to bed. Armies of servants live in shanties and slums in urban agglomerates nannying and mopping, cooking and scrubbing for their masters. Slaving for a pittance and with no job contracts in place, they enjoy few protections.
Those that serve the Indian middle classes are voiceless. Often from the lower castes, their views and interests go unconsidered. The plight of Indian domestic help being mistreated in the Middle East
is well documented. Though they are sexually assaulted, beaten up and made to forgo their passports and basic human rights, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs does little (arguably nothing) to help.
In India, the fact that an upper class Indian is put in cuffs for something as petty as violating their servant's rights is seen as an aberration. Considering a servant as an untermensch is not an exception; it is a way of life. Indians are desensitised to the plight of their servants in the way the west is not. As a privileged son of Brahmin Indian doctors, I have had a ringside seat view. We are infamous for turning a blind eye to the daily depredations on the lower socioeconomic classes' rights.
Americans should understand the larger context here: the Indian middle classes, the purveyors and consumers of India's media channels, are
in turmoil. The economy is floundering, inflation is sky high and dreams of real-estate and glitzy cars now seem unreal. Superpower allusions are in tatters. This arrest makes for a perfect vent for a Napoleonic complex.
Devyani Khobragade is a
well connected scion of a family of powerful
government officials. A minor Indian diplomat not granted full immunity, she was subjected to the same treatment as any human trafficker would have got in the US, and for this India rages. Here is a classic case of privilege if there ever was one.
This might come as a humiliation for a section of Indians who fervently believe that the divine rights of their gilded few must be preserved at all costs, but perhaps for the rank and file of the underclasses, this arrest is the best possible advertisement of their situation.