We are currently witnessing a media frenzy surrounding the arrest of an Indian diplomat in US on charges of visa fraud. While Indian media and politicians are vociferous in the defence of the lady, the Americans are actually unable to figure out why there is so much outrage over the incident. There are many factors that has led to the current situation. Let us go through them.
Let us face it. Indian diplomats are not paid well enough to afford maids in countries like the US. She should not have taken the maid, ideally. However, being used to the culture of the subcontinent where the maids come cheap and are a huge help in dealing with domestic chores, she would have thought it worth the risk. The maid too might have initially thought it to be a good deal - a wage of 30000 rupees per month for a maid is the highest an Indian maid can aspire to. And boarding and lodging came free. It is quite unlikely that the maid was not an active participant in the fraud. She changed her mind in the US as using her rights as a person there offered her a better deal.
I would not blame her for doing so.Maids or domestic helps are considered to be less than equal by a person belonging to the middle class in India. Having a maid is a status symbol. Hiring and firing of domestic helps has the characteristics of an unregulated free market. Maids have separate utensils for having their food. The amount of distrust shown to maids is rationalized as trying to be safe. Maids usually belong to the lower class of the society. Their wages are miniscule and probably that factor, along with the mistrust shown to them makes them steal or become partners in other crimes. The things which an average maid takes for granted in the US are given only to privileged maids in India - maids who have earned the trust of their employers. That is the reason why 'treated as family' is considered to be enough reason for paying low wages. We have not lost our feudal mindset. So the middle class takes it, sub-consciously at least, as a condemnation of the lifestyle we follow.
The educated Indian looks down upon manual labour. It is always transferred to someone lower than him or her. Men pass it on to women, upper classes to lower classes. Earlier it used to be from upper caste to lower caste. You are an oddity if you earn enough and do not employ a maid. The status of a government official is often judged by how many people he or she has at home. Employing people in the office to do domestic chores is the norm in an average office in India. It exists in its worst form in the defence forces but the Indian bureaucracy is no less.
That being said, Indians have the tradition of bending over backwards to please their guests. And we expect it to be reciprocated though we may not directly insist on it. And strip searching is akin to sexual assault in India - the body of a woman is to be naked under no circumstances. It is considered to be one of the worse humiliations a woman may face. That may be a reason for the increase in rape cases - men trying to re-assert theit power over women who are getting empowered. Quite honestly, most of the Indians protesting now would have simply kept quiet if the lady was not strip-searched. We understand that she has been accused of committing a crime and that she will have to face the consequences if she is convicted. And diplomats do have a special place in the country. As per the custom in the subcontinent, a diplomat or an envoy is a guest who is not to be harmed, no matter what he or she does, whether in personal capacity or not. The guest is akin to God. So you can understand the anger an average Indian would feel if the custom that he or she has been ingrained with is not followed in the case of a fellow citizen in a foreign country. A fellow citizen, and that too a diplomat strip-searched!? That too over a crime that logically no rational requirement for the accused to be strip-searched? Welcome back, Cold War years!
If there is any equation not involved in the whole thing, it is one of caste. The diplomat belongs to one of the most deprived castes of the country. It is more of a class thing, a bureaucrat thing. The rich and the powerful are accorded special privileges in the country. At least half the civil service aspirants are more inspired by the red beacons of the official cars rather than the idea of public service. And finally the Supreme Court had to cut down the list of people entitled to have red beacons.
The sense of privileges Indian judges have is a totally different and laughable matter.
Yup. It is a complex situation. And general elections next year only makes the issue worse.
