This not entirely true. There is much genuine affection for India within the USA. Something we would be well advised not to pi$$ away in a H&D funk. America & Americans want to see India succeed. They are thrilled with India's rapid growth.Rahul M wrote:we are alone and should plan that way.
We saw that affection in the custodial rape. They must have been enamoured with Dr. DK to want to rape her.Theo_Fidel wrote: This not entirely true. There is much genuine affection for India within the USA.
Translation: Beware of offending the anointed of the Lord, Heathen! His wrath shall be terrible!Something we would be well advised not to pi$$ away in a H&D funk.
I have a bridge to sell you. Would you be interested in it, perhaps?America & Americans want to see India succeed. They are thrilled with India's rapid growth.
Indian establishment is quite clear that this is a practise condoned by both nations,till this event. So, no Mrs DK shouldnt be given up.Theo_Fidel wrote:No way the USA backs down over this. People don't understand how the US works.
Diplomat committed a personal error in judgement and must now pay the personal price. The US system is built on extracting this price.
Hiding behind diplomatic immunity for personal action is weak.
So, the optics in US public opinion > optics in Indian public opinion?BTW the optics of this in American public opinion is horrible. It is impossible for folks to defend India in this when pointed questions are asked in USA.
So Mrs DK should be given up? Sets a precedent, a bad one.Back away folks, we are not yet strong enough to challenge.
Ah, American media. Advising India on whom India should elect, on what Indians should feel bad about..etc. That American mediaAmerican media is unhappy over the way India has defended the perpetrator.
And if we dont persist, the precedent of giving up an Indian diplomat also speaks for itself.The whole thing looks like feudal privilege gone wrong from outside. There will be consequences for India one way or another if we persist.
If INC has to get any credit it can't wait till the last moment. Also till she is in US with the charges standing it will give the opposition the stick to beat INC.Kati wrote:....Is massa planning to settle the case just b4 the election and that gives INC a huge "victory over massa" boost in the election? Looks far-fetched. The real victim, that is DK, is a dalit, and that will give other parties a long stick to beat INC.
May be not per US law but it is rape as per Indian law .. I know I know it happened on US soil so US law will apply ityadi ..Theo_Fidel wrote:There was no rape. Folks in India can not understand that this is how all americans are processed. Even Ken Lay CEO of $50 Billion company was strip searched and thrown into drunk tank.
Someday India will be the same and there will be no privilege for anyone in India as well.
Apostle handle - The decision to deny Ms. Khobragade diplomatic immunity, arrest her and do standard cavity examination/search almost certainly came after a full office review of the Department of Justice. For those unaware of American prosecutorial process, our federal criminal cases go through a methodical institutionalized process in the United States. Some of the highest ranking officials deliberate and approve, before an arrest is ordered. The decision to deny Ms. Khobragade diplomatic immunity was 99% likely done, for among other things, to send India a message.
And pray, what would those consequences be? Bring 'em on, we have been through enough sanctions before to worry about the consequences. There is NOTHING of consequence that India imports from the US that it cannot get from elsewhere.Theo_Fidel wrote:No way the USA backs down over this. People don't understand how the US works.
Diplomat committed a personal error in judgement and must now pay the personal price. The US system is built on extracting this price.
Hiding behind diplomatic immunity for personal action is weak.
BTW the optics of this in American public opinion is horrible. It is impossible for folks to defend India in this when pointed questions are asked in USA. Back away folks, we are not yet strong enough to challenge. American media is unhappy over the way India has defended the perpetrator. The whole thing looks like feudal privilege gone wrong from outside. There will be consequences for India one way or another if we persist.
Just because American law enforcement rapes everyone does not mean that we should submit to it.Theo_Fidel wrote:There was no rape. Folks in India can not understand that this is how all americans are processed. Even Ken Lay CEO of $50 Billion company was strip searched and thrown into drunk tank.
Someday India will be the same and there will be no privilege for anyone in India as well.
Quick question. Average American may dislike the PRC and Russia. Are they stronger than India economically and technologically, respectively, even so? So does the rise of nations depend on how much average citizens like those nations or on real politik and what those nations themselves do? I believe that is what Rahul M is getting at.Theo_Fidel wrote:This not entirely true. There is much genuine affection for India within the USA. Something we would be well advised not to pi$$ away in a H&D funk. America & Americans want to see India succeed. They are thrilled with India's rapid growth.Rahul M wrote:we are alone and should plan that way.
India needs the USA more than the USA needs us. We need get stronger before we get emotional. Cool blood please...
TF ji,Theo_Fidel wrote:BTW the optics of this in American public opinion is horrible. It is impossible for folks to defend India in this when pointed questions are asked in USA. Back away folks, we are not yet strong enough to challenge. American media is unhappy over the way India has defended the perpetrator. The whole thing looks like feudal privilege gone wrong from outside. There will be consequences for India one way or another if we persist.
Give diplomacy a chance. Then there is a date in Jan 2014 when this case will start rolling .. India will perhaps wait till then and the real payback, if any, will happen after that.VijayR wrote:We should quickly slap a counter charge on US staffers in India
A reciprocal arrest is the quickest way to solve this issue , instead of appealing to them to drop charges against KD
Also , isn't law enforcement a state subject in India
Surely we too have zealous / over zealous officers in some state where there are US consulates who can shoot first and ask questions later ( I meant by way of slapping a legal case )
Correction - she is NOT American or even a common Indian citizen. She is an INDIAN DIPLOMAT and the Diplomat's need to be accorded courtesy as prevalent in international relations. The 50 billion USD company owner is an AMERICAN citizen and it is up to Americans to decide how they treat her. But not the INDIAN diplomat. Don't forget his distinction.Theo_Fidel wrote:There was no rape. Folks in India can not understand that this is how all americans are processed. Even Ken Lay CEO of $50 Billion company was strip searched and thrown into drunk tank.
Incorrect statement based on wrong premise. What happens in India with respect to INDIAN citizens or even common foreign nationals is purview of Indian legal system. And societal moors. Even then, foreign DIPLOMATS are/will not be subjected to same treatment for that is the international understanding.Someday India will be the same and there will be no privilege for anyone in India as well.
Do you still want India to believe that this is a case of wage dispute with absolutely no diplomatic or espionage angle to it? In matters of statecraft targeting of messengers (diplomats) will provoke charged emotions. Because once diplomats are treated as pawns in the game then friendly flag gets immediately replaced by a hostile one. In this case it was the US DOJ that either mistakenly or purposefully changed the flag.Theo_Fidel wrote:There was no rape. Folks in India can not understand that this is how all americans are processed. Even Ken Lay CEO of $50 Billion company was strip searched and thrown into drunk tank.
The future is here and people of the old order would not like the new order. Perhaps US has signalled the arrival of it by treating the ancien regime like dirt.Someday India will be the same and there will be no privilege for anyone in India as well.
Agree sirji. Do not we remember the USS <whatever> sailing into the Bay of Bengal during the '71 war?saumitra_j wrote:I am happy that US SD has done what we Indians could not do because of Shri MMS and other assorted America lovers: Created an institutional memory of USA being a nasty nation which is in fact a reality if you read and understand history. This is good for us in the long term and as I have said before, Indians should simply be aware of the fact that the land of milk and honey is also a land of strip and cavity searches (aka Institutional Rape). And act accordingly....
Kudos to Ms Gabbard and Mr Bera for displaying (un)common sense as versus Mr Bharara. Lets see if the US is indeed serious about salvaging the situation.Kati wrote:The Telegraph, Dec 20, 2013, Kolkata
Row hits zone that needs top intervention
K.P. NAYAR
Washington, Dec. 20: Any resolution of the escalating row over victimised diplomat Devyani Khobragade will require decisive political intervention between India and the US at the highest level.
By personally wading into the issue, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has created the space for such intervention from India’s side. “This is deplorable,” Singh said, using unusually strong words about Khobragade’s treatment by Americans when he was approached by reporters outside Parliament yesterday.
In the US, momentum may be building up towards such intervention with Congressmen beginning to express their irritation over how the Obama administration has mindlessly risked one of their country’s foreign relationships — with India — which was in full bloom for over a decade.
This morning, Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu member of the US Congress, issued a statement expressing her disappointment over how the case against India’s deputy consul-general in New York was handled.
“I was disappointed to hear initial reports about the treatment of Devyani Khobragade,” she said in comments on the issue. “I urge the state department to work with its counterparts in India to ensure our relationship remains strong and to ensure our law enforcement agencies put appropriate protocols in place for these situations.”
She said “our relationship with India is deeply valued and the progress we are making on economic, political and security issues is key in Asia and the Pacific region.… Diplomats play a vital role in our ever-shrinking globalised world. And among America’s partnerships, the importance of our alliance with India cannot be overstated.”
Although Gabbard is a practising Hindu, she is not Indian. Both her parents are white Americans and she has been elected from Hawaii as a Democrat.
Yesterday, Indian-American Congressman Amerish Bera became the first US legislator to criticise how the Obama administration handled the New York case. He just stopped short of demanding outright that Khobragade and India deserve an apology for this lapse.
In an interview to India Abroad, an ethnic newspaper here, Bera said: “If there are apologies that should be made, we should make these apologies.… If there were mistakes made, then obviously apologising helps us move forward and work through any misunderstandings and that is a good thing.”
Describing the entire episode as “unfortunate”, the Congressman pointed out that “this has been such a good year in the US-India relationship with our friendship and the countries growing ever more closer together and planning for a future together. I still hope that our diplomats — at our end — and the Indian diplomats are able to absorb this and move forward, and smoothen things over as quickly as possible, and rectify this if there was an injustice done.”
Bera is elected from California and, like Gabbard, belongs to President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party. That makes reactions by both members of Congress significant.
Gabbard and Bera are both members of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. If these comments are indicative of the feelings within the Caucus, there is every likelihood that pressure may build up on Obama to personally intervene in the matter and act to resolve it.
But any such action will have to be based on India’s statement today that “there is only one victim in this case, that victim is Devyani Khobragade” and take steps to undo the wrong done to her and to her country.
In 1999, when Pakistan’s infiltration into Kargil and the subsequent war threatened stability in South Asia, the state department was reluctant to support India. So was president Bill Clinton, contrary to popular belief.
It was only after the India Caucus was in ferment and the House of Representatives acted resolutely to define Pakistani aggression as such that Clinton decided to summon Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Washington and ask him to withdraw Pakistani forces to the Line of Control.
This time, however, reality dictates that support for the Indian diplomat within the India Caucus may be slower to build up. That is because at the popular level in America, there is much support for the maid Sangeeta Richard and very little for Khobragade.
Going by comments in the social media and on news websites from readers, the maid is seen as the victim of a well-to-do diplomat who is refusing to pay American minimum wage to her household staff. It is such support that is encouraging New York authorities to persist in their determination to punish Khobragade.
In any case, there is a lot of jealousy here against diplomats. In New York, adding to that is an undercurrent of popular resentment because many diplomats, especially from nouveau riche Gulf states, misuse their immunity and behave haughtily with lesser mortals.
If the Obama administration moves towards political intervention at the highest level to deescalate the tension with India, the trigger would have been an admission by the prosecuting New York attorney in this case, Preet Bharara, that he virtually conspired to spirit out the maid’s family, all Indian nationals, and bring them to the US.
Although Bharara may have acted within the confines of US laws, such laws were enacted here to protect victims of excesses in the worst dictatorships and repressive regimes, not citizens of a democracy like India, which is praised constantly in America for its shared values with the US.
It is understood that the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, who spoke to foreign secretary Sujatha Singh today, was at a loss to defend Bharara’s action. The foreign secretary questioned a defensive Sherman about the right of a foreign government to “evacuate” Indian citizens from within its borders while cases were pending against those citizens in Indian courts, sources said.
Hopefully not. This was upheld by the supreme court on the slimmest of margins with very grave misgivings and is still debated vociferously. So despite being legal, it is contentious.Theo_Fidel wrote:There was no rape. Folks in India can not understand that this is how all americans are processed. Even Ken Lay CEO of $50 Billion company was strip searched and thrown into drunk tank.
Someday India will be the same and there will be no privilege for anyone in India as well.
Eh?Theo_Fidel wrote: Well then she should not have gone to USA.This is simply how all Americans are treated.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1131220/j ... rPpMOJZ0r0devesh wrote:Karan M ji,
can you please post the link to that article? thanks.
So Modi has already started the dictating our foreign policy without being anywhere near the power center in Delhi. Quite an achievement for a Chaiwalla! More pawa to him and more Chai for all of us I say.a_bharat wrote:As Sankarshan Thakur said "but for the churlish pre-election atmosphere created by Modi" GOI wouldn't have taken the steps it did. Whether he is right or wrong, GoI did take half a step in the direction of challenging the US. At this point, we shouldn't back down, but shall pursue the path chosen with full commitment (visibly so) and face the consequences -- not only for DK but also for India's security.