The editorial says: "Even more disturbing is the fact that Indian officials would take extreme steps to retaliate for the arrest — they removed security barriers surrounding the American Embassy compound.
Despite the way many Indians seem to view the case, it is not a challenge to India's honor. It is a charge against one diplomat accused of submitting false documents to evade the law. "
The Washington Post report on the issue appears to be more balanced, but does not comment on the strip search and cavity search that the Indian diplomat was subjected to.
The report mentions how under-privileged Dalits have come up in Indian hierarchy, but domestic servants are still paid abysmally low salaries in India.
The report mentions how Khobragade used to advocate for women's rights in public, but has now been accused of underpaying her nanny at home."... she was paying the Indian nanny looking after her two daughters far less than the $9.75 required by the U.S. government. A federal complaint said the diplomat secretly contracted to pay the nanny, Sangeeta Richard, the equivalent of $573.07 a month, which would work out to about $3.31 an hour based on a 40-hour work week.
However, Safe Horizon, a victim assistance organization in New York that is helping the nanny, said she typically worked 90 to 100 hours a week for Khobragade, which would work out to only $1.32 to $1.46 an hour", says the Post report."...Khobragade was born in a town near Mumbai, into a family of Dalits — the name for the country's lowest caste, once called the “untouchables.” Her professional success shows how far India has come in recent years.
"Her father, a bureaucrat, owed his career in part to a policy to set aside 15 percent of jobs in India's government for members of lower castes. His daughter benefited from this quota when she joined the foreign service in 1999.
"The Khobragades are a prominent family from a subcaste of Dalits called Mahars, who were once street sweepers and village watchmen forbidden to enter temples or drink water from the same wells as the upper castes. In recent years, as India's rigid system of social stratification weakened, Mahars have risen to prosperity and professional careers."
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