India-US relations: cooling and warming up (merged thread)

[Madhu]

You are correct Ray, US policing has ugly aspects to it that the poor and less connected are very aware of but others don't see.

Same too with the treatment of poorer migrant Indians abroad at the hands of well-to-do Indians which sometimes raises the ire of locals back home in India but often doesn't.

What you may not realize from a distance is that there is a certain amount of corruption among the Indian community living in the US that goes down very badly with long term Indian Americans. We are aware of this behavior and it is not pleasant to watch. It very much hurts some people living abroad, just as much as the bad treatment of Indians in, say, the Gulf. Some people justify anything. Perhaps this is overly coloring our perception.

But you are correct that this was handled badly and India has a complaint. But Indians are not the only people arrested for this, Saudi diplomats and others have been arrested too for abusing domestic help stateside but their cases did not get as much attention.

I just don't see how two wrongs make a right or how ###-for-tat diplomacy makes the situation any better. There are other ways to show displeasure and mete out punishment for ignoring diplomatic protocol. Others are watching both the US and India and likely making a negative judgement.

[omarali50]

There are many aspects of maid-gate. Obviously she doesnt have any "right" to keep a maid while breaking local laws...in this case the law specifying what wages a maid should be paid. But the outrage seems more about:
1. The public arrest, strip search and imprisonment. Hardly standard practice for middle-class and above in India and not for Mafia chieftains, friends of Dick Cheney or senior bankers in the US either, so why was that done to her? My initial guess was that it was just standard NY Marshals douchebaggery, not India-specific. The police culture in the US being what it is (which is, in MANY ways, far superior to police culture in Pakistan or India, but that distinction may not be the first thought in the mind of an educated Indian, since our police douchebaggery is very class conscious and no diplomat would be treated like this in INdia or Pakistan unless express orders were given to the police to behave in this way)
2. Which brings us to the second cause of the outrage: the widespread belief that "this couldnt happen unless the state department wanted it to happen"..i.e. it is a deliberate insult.

I have no idea if it was deliberate or not. My guess would be "probably not"..at least not meant to be specially insulting. The State department may have felt the need to have her arrested because their quiet complaint (apparently sent in September to India) had not had any effect. Another cross-cultural misunderstanding perhaps? In this case the state department may have forgotten how fast things are processed in India?
But the dominant feeling among Indians on my timelines seems to be that "this was deliberate and meant to be insulting". Even if they are wrong, that is not a perception that will be very helpful to the US image in India.
The most interesting aspect could be what a friend from Mumbai has raised. He believes MANY diplomats from third world countries have maids (or semi-slaves) kept on lower wages in the same manner. And this may cause many of them to lose their maids. Oh the humanity!
I personally think the diplomat should have been charged once quiet messaging had not worked. But the public arrest and especially the strip search, were gratuitously insulting and unnecessary. And if they are standard part of american police culture, then that culture too needs to be looked at again...

[carl]

Maid-gate:

I don't know much about this case. There doesn't seem to be much in the American press. So these comments will be general. Also I don't know any NYPD guys or whoever arrested her.

As far as publicly arresting somebody, that isn't unusual. You pick them where it is most convenient and if they don't like it, tough. As far as a strip search goes, that would depend mostly upon the procedures in place at the facility she was booked into. I would hope such a facility wouldn't make an exception because of somebody's status. Then of course perhaps they had discretion and chose to exercise it because she ticked them off. Also I've read that diplomats in NY severely abuse their privileges so there might be a bit of payback involved when one does a crime they can get hooked up for.

Judging by the bail, this isn't a little crime. They are taking this seriously. Lastly, it seems to me that Americans get ticked off when somebody enslaves somebody else, especially when the enslaver is a guest in the country.

If that makes American cops d--------s, so be it.

[Ray]

[Ray]

The above gives the gist of the case.

The interesting issue is that while the maid was paid an appalling salary by US standards, then how is it that she will support her husband and two children the the US.

The US vets visa applications very stringently.

How come this passed muster wherein the family will surely not be able to sustain itself and will be a burden on the US?

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The diplomat was subjected to also 'cavity' search.

Is wage dispute a 'grave' crime in the US?

Do those, who are not even diplomats, but are US citizens who employ the illegal Mexicans down south, subjected to these indignities?

[Ray]

Report: Some at U.S. diplomatic posts earn less than $1 a day

The report from the department's Office of the Inspector General looked at how the U.S. pays more than 51,000 local, non-American employees in about 170 missions. In addition to the hardship caused to the workers because of inadequate pay, the report found that the U.S. is losing staff to other higher-paying employers and may not be able to fill vacancies with qualified people.............................

The report says the hardest-hit local employees are those at the lowest levels, and quotes some employees as saying they make less than $1 a day.

Some U.S. missions are in impoverished parts of the world where low salaries are common, and there is a wide range in pay depending on what jobs are performed and where. But the report sets out a stark picture of the richest country in the world paying some of the lowest salaries.

"Twenty-seven missions presented compelling arguments that their lower-grade employees fall short of minimal living standards," the report said......

"These arguments included accounts of LE [locally employed] staff: removing children from school, cutting back to one meal a day, sending children to sell water or little cakes or toiletries on the streets ... employees depending on salary advances and defaulting on loans in order to cover basic expenses ... [pay]grades 1 to 3 earning less than $1.00 per day."

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS...ef=werecommend

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May see this also

http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=821486

[carl]

Ray:

The time line you cited sounds like a defense attorney's slant on things. Maybe its true. Maybe not. The criminal complaint will be the interesting thing and important thing to read. It is really the only thing that matters.

The 'diplomat' became a 'prisoner' the second she was arrested. If the jail's procedures require a cavity search during processing, then that is what will be done. She was a prisoner, not a diplomat-prisoner.

At the risk of being inflammatory, what caste is the maid and what caste is the diplomat? Who is higher in the caste pecking order?