India and the Khobragade Saga

Not the angel she seems

What first appeared straightforward isn’t
Devyani Khobragade, the Indian consular official arrested two weeks ago by American officials on charges of visa fraud and labor law violations relating to her employment of a nanny/housekeeper, has stirred an international affair with Indian outrage drawing demonstrations against the US government and the New York officials who arrested her.

The attractive 39-year-old Khobragade, rather than being a member of the elite foreign service, according to the narrative, is a dalit, a member of India’s lowest caste, once called “untouchables,” who apparently managed to pull herself up by her own bootstraps to become a member of an exclusive foreign service brigade. She is married to a New York-born American Indian who is described as an oenophile – a wine connoisseur.

But amid the swirl of charges of mistreatment of a diplomat, of high-handedness of US officials against a lesser country are the charges laid against Khobragade by Sangeeta Richard, the housemaid she employed.

Media in Mumbai say that Richard’s husband, Philip, in a petition to the New Delhi High Court in July, listed these charges against Khobragade, describing her as keeping his wife in “slavery-like conditions or keeping a person in bondage.”

Other charges include these:

• ”Even though the contract stipulated that Sunday would be an off-day she worked from 6 am to 11 pm, minus 2 hours for church even on Sunday. She worked from 6 am to 11 pm on Saturday as well.”
• “Uttam Khobragade called Sangeeta’s family several times and threatened them that they would have to face dire consequences if she complains and that he would ruin their future, get them abducted and frame false charges of drugs against them.”
• ”At the immigration office, Devyani  falsely accused Sangeeta of theft, in front of the US Immigration Officer. Sangeeta asked what it was she had stolen. Devyani could not say and threatened her saying that she will come to know when she returns home.”

Sangeeta’s daughter Jennifer, wrote to government officials in July:

• ”My mother used to sound unhappy whenever she talked to us on phone. She asked Devyani to send her back to India but Devyani refused her request.”
• “Uttam Khobragade forced police to come to our house at night around 11 pm. There were 5 policemen. From that day onwards police has started calling my father, my brother and me as well... He said to my father that he would destroy our future and not let my father continue with his job anymore.”
• ”We no more feel safe in our own house because of the phone calls we are getting and the words that Uttam Khobragade has said to my father. We really need your help to get out of all this trouble. It is like a mental torture on my family. PLEASE HELP US.”

Sangeeta Richard has issued no statement since leaving Khobragade’s house in June. But a US complaint based on her statements indicates that when Khobragade submitted details for Sangeeta Richard’s visa, she stated the housekeeper would be paid US$9.75 per hour, the New York minimum wage. But allegedly she also executed a second contract signed by the two and concealed from US authorities in which Khobragade stipulated that Richard would be paid a maximum of Rs30,000 per month or $3.31 per hour.

The diplomat’s father, Uttam Khobragade, reportedly denied the charges, saying Sangeeta was being paid $8.75, of which Rs30,000 was being sent to her husband every month. The family accused the housekeeper of “extortion,” alleging that she had asked for $10,000, a regular passport instead of the restrictive one issued to consular officials’ servants, and immigration assistance.

At a press conference in Mumbai, Deviant’s father reiterated “We paid her according to the minimum wage. Sangeeta seems to have used Devyani to go to the US,” he said.

Nonetheless, more details come to light – including revelations of US actions to “evacuate” the nanny’s family from India – it’s clear that what at first appeared to be a relatively straightforward matter is anything but. 

Whatever the case, the US appears to have stumbled badly, whoever is telling the truth. No one in the US State Department appears to have anticipated the outrage in India and its consequences for a relationship that senior department officials have worked hard in cultivating for more than a decade. US Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to deliver a personal apology by telephone to Indian officials.

But in any case, it isn’t the first time Indian diplomats in New York have been found in violation of US labor laws. In 2011, the Indian consul general at the time was sued by a former domestic servant for mistreatment. The case was eventually settled out of court.  Last year, the consulate’s press and culture counselor was hit with a $1.5 million civil judgment she was found guilty of what was described as slave-like treatment of a former maid.  The counselor left the United States and refuses to pay the award.

But the US officials could have quietly told their counterparts in Delhi that her presence in the United States was no longer welcome and making clear that this sort of misconduct by other diplomats would not be tolerated, which would have sent the message without generating what has become an unnecessary squabble between the two countries.

And as David J. Karl, David J. Karl is president of the Asia Strategy Initiative, an analysis and advisory firm, and a senior director with Geoskope, a cross-market intelligence company, pointed out to Asia Sentinel, “the US argument that Ms. Khobragade’s consular position does not afford her full diplomatic immunity is at odds with Washington’s stance in the Raymond Davis affair three years ago.  A CIA contractor operating out of the US consulate in Lahore, Davis was arrested by Pakistani police after he fatally shot two men in circumstances that remain under dispute. 

Washington didn’t contest the double-murder charges, Karl says, but asserted that Davis was protected under the principle of diplomatic immunity.  President Obama even weighed in, stating that "There's a broader principle at stake that I think we have to uphold."

Beyond anger over Ms. Khobragade’s treatment by US authorities, Karl continues, New Delhi officials are also incensed by the other extraordinary actions Washington took, including designating the nanny as a victim of human trafficking and granting her a special visa to stay in the United States even though her official passport had been revoked by New Delhi and she is subject to an arrest warrant in India; rejecting the validity of the legal proceedings Khobragade initiated against the nanny in India over the labor dispute; and then spiriting the nanny’s family out of India on the grounds that it was being harassed by government authorities.