A Maid and Her Mistress

The recent spat between India and the United States over the arrest and humiliation of India’s deputy counsel in New York, Dr. Devyani Khobragade, threatens to create a wedge between the two (normally friendly) democracies. The Indian foreign service official was arrested and handcuffed last week in New York on charges of forging her maid’s visa forms and underpaying her in contravention of American law.

Interestingly, the person being charged for exploitation of a domestic worker and her right to a minimum wage, is herself from the 'exploited' classes, the so-called dalit or untouchables of India. Fifty years ago, neither she nor her father would have been able to rise to the status and position that they have been able to attain if it were not for the minotity-friendly and affirmative action policies of the government of India.

While the charge against Ms. Khobragade of paying her Indian maid less than the minimum wages may be true, it still does not warrant the rough treatment meted out to her in full public view. As is quite common in India, It is possible that the diplomat had assumed responsibility to pay for her maid’s air ticket for travel to the United States, to send money to the maid’s parents every month, or to help the maid in any other way. I personally know several people who not only spent tens of thousands of rupees at the time of the wedding of their servant’s daughter, they actually made it possible. Minimum hourly wage is not everything in India - domestic workers can, and do, get compensated in so many other ways. Many people consider it their duty to provide their domestic servant with additional means so as to enable him to send his child to a good school. If the United States law enforcement authorities were not aware of this social context, then, yes, the Indian diplomat may have broken the law.

On the other hand, there are numerous incidents of American diplomats or servicemen flouting host country laws, rules and customs. Just 3 weeks ago, a huge quantity of cocaine worth 50 million dollars was discovered on a beach in Yokosuka, close to the American base.

A U.S. Department of State diplomat and her husband tricked an Ethiopian woman into accompanying them as their domestic servant to Japan in 2009 on a promise of 300 dollars monthly salary, where they held her virtually as a prisoner in their home and forced her to work for them for less than $1 per hour and where the husband repeatedly raped the woman with his diplomat wife’s consent. A Virginia federal judge awarded the victim $3.3 million in damages on a default judgment against the couple. The diplomat retired from the State Department with full pension and then fled the country.

A few years ago in Tokyo, the (US) embassy paid-for-dormitory for domestics (so they did not have to live with their diplomatic masters) was found full of women not connected with the embassy, some of whom were prostituting themselves on and out of U.S. government property. The public restroom just outside the dorm was a known quickie spot for night time taxi drivers looking for sex. Things were handled nice and quietly by State and the usually compliant Japanese government (MOFA), and the story stayed out of the news and out of the taxpayers’ attention.

Harold Countryman, along with his spouse Kimberly, was a U.S. diplomat assigned to Seoul, Korea. Before leaving the country, he and his wife hired a Cambodian woman to work for them in the U.S. Harold falsified the necessary U.S. visa application to get the Cambodian woman into the U.S., falsely claiming he would pay her minimum wage. Instead, once in the U.S., the Countrymans “Held her passport,” says Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “Her wages came out to roughly a dollar an hour.” The woman was berated and sometimes assaulted. She was not allowed to leave the Countrymans’ house. Luckily, a neighbor noticed something wrong and called the cops, who luckily took it all seriously. This story has a semi-happy ending of sorts: The couple pleaded guilty to visa fraud, and are paying the Cambodian woman $50,000 in restitution. Harold Countryman, the diplomat, only received probation, however.

For a detailed account of the three cases cited above, and further analysis, please click here. Mr. Preet Bharara, the overzealous US Justice Department prosecutor, may not yet have joined his current employer when all this was happening.

And, what about other federal security and information-gathering agencies and their officials? Who in this world would not have been amused by the fact of NSA wiretapping Auntie Angela Merkel’s cellphone, presumably to eavesdrop on her conversations with Monsieur Sarkozy, causing jealousy to Uncle Sam. Your NSA is just “like the STASI”, she 'lovingly' complained to President Obama recently.

I used to think that the values, such as the right to freedom and equality, the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, etc., enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are universal. I did not know that these values are for the protection of Americans only, and become tools for prosecution of non-Americans. I now recall the greatest American announcement since the venerable Monroe Doctrine, almost two hundred years later, “If you are not with us, you are against us.” Like Iran and some Arab countries who refuse to recognize the existence of Israel, America refuses to understand that there are other, older, countries and social systems that have been around for five thousand years, and where things may be done in a slightly different fashion.

While I do not wish to defend the concept of domestic labor in India, the fact remains that poverty in rural India forces millions of people (mostly teenagers) to migrate to towns and cities in search of jobs. When these people arrive, they are invariably raw - innocent, illiterate (can’t even write their own name), unskilled, starving and vulnerable - and since they have neither an address nor an identity, few people will open the doors to their hearts and homes for them. In these circumstances, the most they can aspire to is a domestic job, and that too if somebody is willing to place their trust in them. Howsoever hard or bad, a job means a roof over the head, free food, clothes and medicine, and a regular monthly salary (most of which is sent back home to take care of siblings). NGO’s and other social activists routinely criticize the prevalence of child labor, but they seem to overlook the fact that in the absence of education and job opportunities in rural India, if these persons did not have a domestic job, their siblings and parents would most likely starve.

There are no statistics available anywhere to make a statement one way or the other about how domestic helpers are treated by their employers. But from personal observation by visiting homes of family members and friends in India, I noticed that in most homes domestic servants looked reasonably happy and cheerful, and willing to engage in simple conversation. Only in 1 place did I find some tell-tale signs of ill-treatment of the servant. As the economy continues to grow and expand in India, I see strong evidence of the working of the principle of supply and demand as regards domestic labor in India. Every year i go back to my home in New Delhi for my holidays, and find a new face. When I ask what happened to the previous maid/servant, I learn that the maid left because she got a better offer from another place. Some of the helpers who once worked at my home have moved on and up the economic ladder and have become shop assistants or ordinary office employees.

There are all sorts of situations, and, as everywhere, there are good employers and there are bad employers. Generally speaking, a stint of a few years as domestic help does provide an opportunity to workers to polish themselves and their skills, and better articulate their hopes and aspirations.

One friend with whom I was discussing this situation said that India must reciprocate its friendly feelings to the United States. He suggested:

Indian immigration officials should welcome the fatherly Mr. George H.W. Bush (if he visits India in the near future) in the immigration area and frisk him. This is in response to the frisking conducted on the former president of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, 80, at New York’s JFK airport when he visited United States in September 2011.

My favorite Ms. Condoleeza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, should also get special treatment in the immigration area when she visits India next time. She should be body- and cavity-searched. This is in return for the kindness shown to the former Foreign Affairs Minister of India, Mr. George Fernandez, who was strip-searched by officers of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at Dulles Airport when he arrived for an official visit in early 2002, and again, in 2003, when he was passing through the U.S. on his way to Brazil.

We all love Richard Gere, the handsome guy who got ‘my’ “Pretty Woman”, but he must be seriously searched and re-searched when he visits India next time to see the Dalai Lama. Poor Richard… do you know what your fellow actor (the Bollywood king), Shah Rukh Khan, went through in April 2012, when he was stopped at New York airport for over two hours by immigration officials after arriving from India in a private plane to address students at Yale University?

‘India slams U.S. habit of detaining Shah Rukh Khan’ was the headline carried by The Hindu, in which it reported the complaint filed by the Government of India, stating that the apology offered by the American government for a previous detention of Shah Rukh Khan in 2009 was nothing but mechanical.

The actor himself made light of his detention, tweeting that “whenever I start feeling arrogant about myself, I visit USA. The immigration guys kick the star out of stardom.”

Not everybody is as magnanimous as Shah Rukh Khan. Many of my friends from Europe (original Europeans, not immigrants or Muslims) in the aftermath of 9/11 stopped going to the United States after experiencing similarly humiliating treatment at the hands of U.S. immigration officials.

In the light of incidents as described above continuing to occur, it is easy to understand the anger mounting in India against such behavior. And yet, there is no sign of an apology, not even an assurance. All we get is this: “American law enforcement did what they are supposed to do. No rules were broken. Charges against Khobragade will not be dropped.”

In bilateral relations, if one side continues to be adamant and consumed in its own greatness, there is precious little the other side can do. Still, a decision by India to quietly recall the diplomat followed by a new posting to another country, rather than transferring her to India’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, might have been the path of least conflict. It would have also shown India’s maturity and statesmanship in international relations.