Diplomat arrest puts Indo-US ties in chaos

By Rajeev Sharma Source:Global Times Published: 2013-12-22 19:03:01

How many times has a US ambassador been told to stay away from a function because the chief guest at the event does not want to share the dais with said envoy? Rarely; or in the case of South Asia, perhaps never!

But this unprecedented development has taken place in India in a rare snub to the US ambassador Nancy Powell. What makes the move even more humiliating is that it hasn't come from a top level politician, but from a bureaucrat - Sindhushree Khullar, a secretary in the Planning Commission.

Just a couple of days ago, prominent politicians like Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, rival prime ministerial candidates from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the ruling Congress Party respectively, and Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar had refused to meet a visiting US Congressional delegation.

All these acts of open defiance took place in retaliation to the December 12 arrest and mistreatment of mid-level Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragde, India's deputy consul general in New York, over allegations of visa fraud and underpaying her Indian maid Sangeeta Richard.

Indo-US bilateral relations have been in a tailspin since then. The Americans never anticipated that the whole of India would erupt and rally together across party lines in condemning the humiliation Khobragde was subjected to. She was picked up in front of her daughters' school in New York, handcuffed and thrown into jail along with hardened criminals, drug addicts and prostitutes.

The Americans refused to accord her diplomatic immunity, saying that as a consular diplomat she was not entitled to full diplomatic immunity, another bone of contention between India and the US. The Indians have rightly pointed out that not even diplomats of inimical countries have ever been subjected to the harsh and barbaric treatment meted out to Khobragde.

The 39-year-old diplomat was strip-searched and even subjected to a cavity search, though US Marshals denied the latter. Normally, Americans conduct cavity searches, which include a manual search of the private parts of the accused, on hardcore criminals and drug peddlers.

She was released on bail after six hours but only after furnishing a bail bond of $250,000, an unusually large amount which the Americans generally reserve for most wanted criminals.

 Khobragde's humiliation appalled everybody in India, from the common man to top government functionaries and politicians. Clearly, the US misjudged the whole situation and soon realized how badly they had gone overboard.

The Americans, after all, have routinely treated prominent Indians like doormats and humiliated celebrities like former president APJ Abdul Kalam, film stars like Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan and top diplomats, including then Indian ambassador Meera Shankar. But none of these incidents triggered massive outrage like the Khobragde case did.

The Indian government, poll-bound in just about four months from now, promptly came up with a slew of retaliatory measures. These measures included revoking the identity cards of US consular personnel and their families, rescinding airport passes, removing security barricades in front of the US embassy in New Delhi, freezing US embassy imports of liquor and other goods and initiating a comprehensive investigation into salaries paid to Indian staff members at four American consulates in India and as domestic help, as well as those teaching at American schools in the country.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who expressed his unavailability to take a phone call from US Secretary of State John Kerry on December 19, has hinted at a deep-rooted conspiracy and described the harangued Indian diplomat as "trapped in conspiracy."

Nearly two weeks have gone by since the Khobragde episode jolted Indo-US relations like no individual case had ever done before.

Far from being conciliatory, the US State Department spokesperson has stoked the embers further by stating that the charges against Khobragde will not be dropped. This threatens to plunge Indo-US relations to murkier lows and paves the way for a messier second round of retaliatory measures from the Indians.

Ironically, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had staked his government at the fag end of his first term in favor of the US for the sake of Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement.

Now at the end of his second term, Singh's government is standing up against the US for the sake of larger national pride. As they say, nothing is impossible in politics.

The author is a New Delhi-based strategic analyst and political commentator. bhootnath004@yahoo.com



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