Being 'more' equal

The Incident

The tag Indian Diplomat can only refer to one person these days. 

Devyani Khobragade

India's deputy consul general in New York, Devyani Khobragade has been arrested in the USA. Devyani is the daughter of a retired IAS officer and has served in prestigious foreign missions in Pakistan, Germany and Italy before coming to the US. She has been accused of submitting false documents to obtain a work visa for her maid, Sangeeta Richard.

According to prosecutors, Khobragade claimed she paid the woman $4,500 a month, but the maid says she received only around $600 per month. The maid had walked out of this job in June this year and eventually connected with a non profit organization which has an anti trafficking program.

There is a huge uproar over her arrest and mistreatment despite the diplomatic immunity that the Vienna Convention is said to offer. Vienna Convention gives full diplomatic immunity to ‘diplomats’. 

According to the US, Khobragade has ‘consular immunity’ and not ‘diplomatic immunity’. Diplomatic immunity means that diplomats can get away from prosecution on any crime, even murder, while they are on duty in another country. Consular immunity is said to give immunity only when the crime is related to the consular operations and other related work. This is the reason why the Indian govt is attempting to shift Khobragade to the UN office, which will offer her the full diplomatic immunity.

To add fuel to fire, Khobragade was subjected to indignities such as stripping, cavity searching, repeatedly handcuffed and DNA swabbing. This is the standard procedure for any criminal in the US. 

The US govt refuses either to apologise or to withdraw charges against her. The Indian govt has also taken some stern actions to retaliate against the harassment she was subjected to.

My view

If the US govt had merely arrested her, and treated her with respect unlike other criminals, things would have been better. The fact that she was treated like any other criminal, subjected to stripping, cavity searches etc is shocking. The US govt should have known better, especially with elections in India approaching. I also wonder how the US govt would have responded if the Indian govt had treated their consulate officers with the same procedure for such a petty crime. Over here, according to reports, the standard procedure for criminals is chin music by police officers, apart from the other usual harassments.

There is another side to this story too.

The Vienna Convention has got me thinking. I was reading the famous political allegory ‘Animal Farm’ while this incident was unwinding at a rapid pace elsewhere. May be that is why the clause, ‘diplomats have special immunity’ caught my attention.

Does becoming a diplomat make one ‘more equal’? Is that the right thing? Should there be a demarcation between ordinary citizens and diplomats?

The Indian govt would never have taken the same stance had the incident happened to an ordinary Indian citizen working abroad. Why? Why not?

As George Orwell put it, ‘some animals are indeed more equal than the others’.

PS: For those who haven’t read the Animal Farm, do read it. I endorse it. I will be publishing a book review later.