Adulthood comes early to a nation, said Albert Camus criticizing Indian endorsement of the Soviet intervention in Hungary which took place in 1956, nine years after India won independence. The Algerian-born French writer would most probably revise his opinion if he were alive to witness the way New Delhi handled or mishandled the arrest of a New York-based Indian diplomat for violating US labor laws. Nobody disputes the basic facts. Devyani Khobragade, 39, India's deputy consul general in New York, created a false contract stating that she would pay her housekeeper Sangeeta Richard, also an Indian, $9.75 per hour in order to obtain a visa for her. Devyani allegedly then had Sangeeta sign a true contract for a far lower wage with far different working conditions. She was only paid $1.42 per hour, and her workweeks often exceeded 100 hours, according to the indictment. She was paid once a month instead of biweekly as agreed, and was denied sick days. In June, Sangeeta fled Devyani's home and sought help from a nonprofit organization that works with victims of human trafficking. Devyani was arrested on Dec. 12 when she was dropping off her daughters at school, and charged with misrepresenting Sangeeta's pay to obtain a work visa. Indian newspapers reported that she was strip-searched and placed in detention along with other criminal suspects. Devyani pleaded not guilty and was released on a personal bond the same day. This was a simple case involving the abuse of maids and violation of labor laws, something India is all too familiar with. This was not a dispute between Washington and New Delhi, but one between two Indian nationals. There was no violation of India's sovereignty by the US. As such, Indian public sympathy should have been with the abused housekeeper, not her employer. Devyani was treated far more leniently than Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF chief and putative French presidential candidate, who was led away in handcuffs by a bunch of New York cops over sexual assault allegations by a hotel maid. But this is an election year and Devyani happens to be a member of the Dalit caste, a community that occupies the lowest rank of Indian society. Who wants to lose the political support of a sizable section of the population in an election year? So both the ruling Congress and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party vied with each other to offer support to the damsel in distress. Some sections of the Indian media went to the extent of suspecting the motives of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan who ordered her arrest. Bharara is of Indian origin and he was trying to be more papist than the pope, said some of them. At the official level, India removed traffic barricades outside the US Embassy, revoked American diplomats' licenses to import alcohol duty-free and barred non-diplomats from using the embassy's social club, whose swimming pool, beauty salon, tennis court and other facilities are popular among American expatriates. The dispute has been brought to a rapid end with the return of Devyani to India on Friday after Washington expelled her on charges of visa fraud and labor law violation. India had granted Devyani full immunity and privileges of a diplomat, a set of rights not accorded to those posted in consulates, by transferring her to the UN. Though the United States appealed to India to waive that immunity, India refused, and transferred her to a new position at the External Affairs Ministry in Delhi. The number of television crews clustered outside a VIP exit at Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday, waiting for the flight from New York, left no one in doubt as to who was India's new national icon. “Her head is held high,” Daniel N. Arshack, Devyani's lawyer in New York, said. Really? The episode raises some larger questions about the ability of those in the Indian establishment who deal with sensitive issues involving other countries. Their behavior was anything but adult-like.
