If one was following English mainstream media in India or twitter, the entire
nation of India seems to have been outraged over the arrest of deputy consular
office Ms. Devyani Khobragade in Newyork. The entire nation is outraged by the
treatment meted out to her, notwithstanding her diplomatic immunity claims. The
nation is particularly infuriated with the arrest in public space (when she was
dropping her kids at school), strip searching, stay in the lock-up for 6 hours
with drug addicts; and some reports even claiming cavity searches and DNA swabs done
on her. The US department of state insists that consular immunity applies only
for offences committed as a part of her job and not on domestic/private note.
The interpretation of the diplomatic privileges enjoyed by personnel under the
Vienna convention act has always been subjective among nations. This is not the
first case of interpretation differences and is certainly not the last one. In this
article, we shall stay strictly clear off this topic of immunity, because as a
practice they appear to be “accorded” or “negotiated” between nations.
I find the outrage in India bizarre and misdirected for
multiple reasons.
Firstly this is such a bigoted country that on one-hand wants to
enact a law of minimum wages to domestic maids and on the other-hand appears to
condone offences of the same nature, in places where such laws exist. It is
surprising to see that, not a single word has been uttered in top-ranking
ministers, officials or media anchors on the treatment meted out to the
domestic maid of Ms. Khobragade, Ms. Sangeetha Richards. The case against Devyani
is that she misrepresented facts in the A3 visa application and also under-paid
her maid way below the minimum wages applicable in her district of work
(Manhattan, New York). On a historic day when the Rajya Sabha has passed the
Lokpal bill which demands highest standards of integrity and probity from
public officials, it is bizarre that there is no outrage about the fact that a
high-ranking diplomat has violated this wilfully?
Let us look at the details of the case against Devyani.
(Read here for details of the charge against her as given by the US authorities). The minimum
wage prevalent in district of New York is $9.75 per hour. Assuming a 40 hour
work week, and 4.3 weeks per month, Sangeetha needs to be paid a monthly salary
of $1677. That works to just over $20K per year which is reported to be in line
with the average market salary of full time domestic maids employed in US(read
here). However the A3 visa application of Sangeetha Richards quoted a monthly salary of
$4500 that is consistent with the first employment contract signed between
the two parties. However there exists a oral agreement and a second employment
contract (which was hidden at the time of applying for visa) which promised
wages of Rs.30,000 per month ($573 per month) with no cap on weekly working hours. Why did Devyani offer such a high salary for the domestic maid, far above
the market value, far above prevailing minimum wages, and as some people say far above
what she can afford from her salary? The only plausible explanation is that
there was “no application of mind” done in drafting the contract, or filing the
visa petition, because the intention was always to defraud the whole process. What
surprises me is that no-one is outraged about this unjustified behavior of a high-ranked
public official.
Secondly, the subsequent sequences of actions also seem to
be suspicious. Sangeetha Richards worked for the period Nov 2012 to June 2013.
Whatever the personal motivations are, she reported the issue to the concerned
US officials and went absconding in the USA around June 2013. The US officials had seized upon
this issue and had sent an advance warning to Indian officials as early as Sep
2013 on the case to be filed against Devyani. What stopped the Indian consulate from taking immediate action and deporting Devyani back to India? This would have saved all the trouble!. But instead, the moment trouble seems to
appear in the horizon, Devyani files a petition of dishonouring of contract
against her maid in a Delhi court. There are reports that the husband &
child of Sangeetha Richards have been arrested in India, and have been asked to
urge Sangeetha to surrender in the Indian court. These strong-arm tactics that were
set in motion in India strongly indicate that the intention of the diplomat was
to bully the complainant to withdraw the case & not come back to India. People familiar with Indian law
are aware that, police actions on employment dishonouring cases are extremely
rare; that too when the accused is absconding. There were numerous such cases
filed by software companies in the Y2k days for breach of contract; and no
police action was taken. Hence it is not easy to see, how well-connected the
diplomat is, to be able to instigate such strong-arm actions in India. For
people who naively believe that Ms. Khobragade is a rags-to-riches IFS officer,
please read the link here on her stupendous growth of her personal wealth &
her real estate purchase spree (including the much famous Adarsh apartment in
Mumbai). Is this behaviour an archetype of integrity and probity of public officials
that we are celebrating with the passage of Lokpal?
The actions involved in “intake” and “processing” (such pathetically euphemistic
words they use in the US!) of people being arrested appear to standard
operating procedures in the US (Check here). If there is a violation then Devyani and Indian
consulate can always sue US officials and we can be assured that the guilty shall pay! However there appears to be little
justification for such a suit because no one involved is even talking about it! Hence except for the fact that we are “pained” by the treatment meted out to a “babu”,
we seem to have no other grievance in this issue. May be, we are so used to seeing handling
by velvet gloves for well-connected babus in India, we are unable to accept
such the non-existence of differential treatment in western countries.
Whether diplomatic immunity applies or not is another issue
which I am staying clear from. Hence all the counter actions that Indian
government have taken to rebuke US are justified from the point of view of
reclaiming immunity. US has always employed double-standards in the topic of
diplomatic immunity of their own international staff and has played hard ball with many countries. Hence I am
not critical of these diplomatic actions taken by India. But what I am critical
about is the continued silence of our top ranking officials/ministers/media (even
as a token measure) on the violation of integrity & probity by a public
official! Unless we do that in strict terms, we can't have any ethical right over the moral high ground in this topic!.
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