News World Devyani Khobragade: NYT, Washington Post, CNN defend strip search of Indian diplomat

Devyani Khobragade: NYT, Washington Post, CNN defend strip search of Indian diplomat

New Delhi: After maintaining an ominous silence over the strip search and cavity search of a senior Indian diplomat in New York, the US media is suddenly on overdrive trying to justify the treatment meted


CNN Opinion by Jeremy Clark, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, criticizes the Indian government for what it called an immature response. "...whether or not the charges and manner of arrest were proper, the intemperate reaction of the Indian government in response shows that, despite its status as an aspiring great power, India still frequently lacks the maturity on the world stage to behave like one."

On removal of security barriers outside the US embassy compound, the article states: "The sensitivity of such a threat to the embassy cannot be taken lightly, and the willingness of the Indian government to take such a step indicates a situation in which politics has run roughshod over any sensible understanding of diplomacy."

The article goes on to criticize India by saying: "Even if India feels its diplomat was ill-treated, a responsible power does not inflame the situation, especially against an ally that happens to the world's most powerful country.

There are many ways to show displeasure without putting the safety of American diplomats at risk. And there are more important moral and political issues that India has to address with the U.S. that do not involve, if the charges are true, vindicating the inalienable right of India's diplomats to illegally import and underpay domestic servants."

The CNN opinion article goes on to describe Khobragade as an "alleged criminal".

"The deafening silence in the maid's defense, in favor of a full-throated defense of an alleged criminal of the higher social class, tells a sad story about the reality of power and privilege in India that will be familiar to many foreigners who have spent substantial time in the country", says the article.

This advice from the pulpit comes from a country, which virtually exterminated the Red Indians as a race in order to establish the supremacy of whites, subjected the coloured people brought as slaves from Africa to the US to racial segregation and subjugation for centuries, and where social inequalities still prevail despite claiming itself as the world's "most powerful country".

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