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.