Maid, Diplomacy and Nationhood

With the Khobragade affair having had its moments under the sun for quite an extended period, it is unlikely that any further development in the case will be highlighted in the way her arrest was.

The facts of the case are pretty simple. An Indian diplomat was arrested for a crime, which by no stretch of imagination, can be considered so grave as to warrant the arrest. For once, the habitual anti-US jholawallahs were right in denouncing the US for its hypocrisy.  The US extends the principal of diplomatic immunity to a CIA agent who murders two people in Pakistan and to a Kenya based diplomat who kills people through rash driving, but declines it to the Indian diplomat on the spurious ground of the immunity being limited to ‘consular duties’.  This is duplicity enough. Period.

While commentators sympathetic to the current Government have gone ga-ga over its supposed muscular response in form of removing security barricades and withdrawing airport privilege passes, the issue has rent the curtain on many a disturbing practices and huge faultlines in public opinion.

If diplomatic relations are based on the principle of reciprocity, why exactly are the US and many other embassies offered such benefits which are not available to their Indian counterparts? The Indian Embassy in US does not even have a reserved car park forget about security barricades. Our ambassador, ex-president and serving ministers are patted down while even the family members of the US diplomatic staff seem to carry non-photographed transferrable security passes which allow them access to even restricted areas of our airports. They are allowed to run provision stores, import provisions and liquor duty free while our diplomats have none of these benefits. So, why and when did we start extending these ‘courtesies’ to those who do not reciprocate? Is it because, as some foreign affairs observers have suggested, that our establishment has huge interests in pandering to American policy makers – for Ivy League seats and plush jobs, green cards, citizenship etc for their children and their willingness to turn a blind eye to their money laundering activities from India? Even in the Khobragade affair, this lady is married to a US citizen.  A diplomat is expected to work for her country and place its interests first. How can a person, even if of impeccable integrity, be seen as working in an independent manner when her spouse is a citizen of the country she has to deal with? How was she even deputed to that country?

So far as our muscular response is concerned, how exactly does withdrawal of additional benefits count as reciprocal reaction? Maybe, it only requires a state dinner for some minister and all these benefits would be restored again!

India must be the only country in this world which has mutely stood by when its Diaspora has been trampled upon by much lesser Nations. In the last 65 years, Indians were expelled or made to leave many countries – Burma, Ceylon, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Fiji, but each time our response was either empty bluster or stony silence. We are a Nation where even the highest court of the land does not find anything amiss in allowing white-skinned murderers to be released so that they can celebrate Christmas at home! When China transgresses and eats up our territory slowly, our only response is to pretend that such events never happened. Next we know, our Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers are falling our backwards to give more and more concessions to China. At the time then the NDA was in power, Colin Powell visited Delhi before landing in Islamabad to declare Pakistan a major non-NATO ally. He did not deem it important enough to inform the Indians of the impending declaration. Surprise, surprise – rather than the US trying to explain on why this piece of information was missed, we had the spectacle of Indian ministers and officials trying to drum up excuses for the US.

Is it any wonder that we get treated the way we are?

Unlike in past events where International slights had served to unite public opinion, the general reaction to Ms Khobragade’s arrest has been mixed. A large section of people seem to believe that the diplomat got her just desserts. Some have questioned the riches obtained by the diplomat and her father, seemingly much above their known sources of income, and see her arrest as karma. Many posts on social networking sites speak of the snootiness of the bureaucracy and how those who believed they were above the law, have been justly brought down to the ground.

Such comments are unfortunate for they do not talk of the same issue. The diplomat here is an official representative of India and her ill-treatment is, in many ways is symptomic of the host Nation’s contempt for India itself. The point on the individual belonging to a class which is seen as being haughty, corrupt and disdainful of law is a different issue altogether. Yet, if the general public is moving towards divorcing its identity from the artefacts of the Indian Nationhood, we are heading for much more disturbing times.

Only a couple of centuries back, western historians had noted with bewilderment, the indifference of the Indian peasant to his rulers.  In battle after battle, they would see the Indian peasants going around their daily routine, tilling their land, grazing their cattle, only miles away from the battlefield where the native forces were getting worsted. This state of affairs had come along for the Aam Aadmi of those days had recognised the rulers for what they were –a self indulgent, corrupt and parasitic lot. It hardly mattered to them if the name of that ruler changed. It was in this context that Goswami Tulsidas had commented – ‘Raja bhaye koi, hamra ki hani’, i.e., whosoever is the ruler, what difference does it make to my plight?

Maybe these are too early days and hopefully, our sense of Nationhood is more robust. But still, it would do good if the ruling classes understand that if the distance between the rulers and the ruled increases too much, there generally comes a day where there is nothing left to rule.