PHOTO | AFP Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade (right), accompanied by
her father Uttam Khobragade (left), waves on her arrival at the domestic
airport in Mumbai on January 14, 2014. The US voiced hope on January 13
that a crisis with India over the arrest of a diplomat has ended, as
officials from the two countries met to discuss unrelated issues.
AFP
A diplomatic row between India and the
United States has highlighted the inhumane way in which US law
enforcement agents treat suspects.
The row has severely
dented relations between the world’s sole superpower and the second
most populous nation on earth, which also happens to have nuclear
capability.
It all started when Devyani Khobragade, a
deputy consul-general in India’s New York mission, was arrested and
charged with paying her Indian domestic worker a salary below the US
minimum wage.
According to Khobragade, the arrest was
bad enough, but not nearly as bad as what happened to her while she was
in police custody. She says she was stripped and “cavity-searched”,
which is apparently a routine procedure employed by US security agents.
The
Indian Government did not take this lying down. It removed the
protective barriers it had installed around the US embassy in New Delhi
and demanded to know how much US diplomats in India pay their Indian
domestic staff.
Khobragade’s humiliation at the hands
of the American police made headlines; India’s leaders described it as
not only “deplorable” but “barbaric”.
I do not want to
go into the merits of the allegations by the maid (apparently she and
her family have been granted US visas on the grounds that they are
“victims of human trafficking”, which qualifies them for asylum), but I
think it is important to recognise that in a world where there is only
one superpower, the United States has been able to get away with the
most atrocious human rights violations while pretending to be a bastion
of freedom and justice.
The Indian government is
annoyed because it believes that the protocol that provides diplomats
with immunity from arrest and prosecution was violated.
Khobragade’s
case gained media attention because she is a diplomat. If she had been
an ordinary Indian citizen, there might not have been so much furore.
Every
single day, US security agents arrest, detain and strip-search innocent
people at will, all in the name of fighting terror.
What
is worse, poor countries can do absolutely nothing about it; in some
cases, they are even complicit in the human rights violations of their
own citizens, as evidenced by the myriad renditions and secret arrests
that have seen people locked up for years in places such as Guantanamo
Bay.
I have not heard of any country that has broken
relations with the US because their nationals are held illegally in
secret cells.
There have been stories of detainees
being subjected to horrendous torture and then being released without
any compensation or apology. Where is the justice in that?
The
furore in India is probably also related to the fact that culturally,
it is the ultimate humiliation for a woman to be forced to strip in
front of strangers — it is considered akin to rape. If her private parts
are violated in any way, that makes the humiliation even more
unbearable.
Americans are generally insensitive to
other people’s cultural norms, and have very little understanding of
what honour and pride mean in other cultures.
It is
probably why they have not been able to understand the thinking behind
suicide attacks, which are often inextricably linked to notions of
honour, especially in Asian cultures.
As Shashi
Tharoor, India’s Minister of State and Human Resources Development, and a
former diplomat himself noted, “Until the US displays appropriate
deference to the sensitivities, pride and honour of other peoples and
cultures, it will continue to be resented around the world.”
When
I was a student in the United States in the 1980s, I loved the concept
of America and what it symbolised. I met open and generous people who
took their freedom for granted.
However, ever since the 9/11 terrorist attack, the thought of travelling to the United States or Europe fills me with dread.
I
have heard horror stories of Kenyans being detained and strip-searched
at airports, even after having fulfilled prohibitive visa requirements
and undergoing intimidating interviews.
These days, on
the few occasions that I have been invited to Europe or North America, I
politely decline the invitation. It just doesn’t seem worth the
trouble.
rasna.warah@gmail.com
No comments :
Post a Comment