US media dubs India's reaction 'misplaced rage'

  Washington, Dec 20 (IANS) Taking the moral high ground, US media in general has dubbed India's reaction to an Indian diplomat's arrest as "misplaced" and "deplorable" though at least one commentator has said that US owes India an apology.

Calling it "India's Misplaced Outrage" the influential New York Times said: "India's overwrought reaction to the arrest" of Devyani Khobragade, its deputy consul general in New York, "is unworthy of a democratic government".

"Despite the way many Indians seem to view the case, it is not a challenge to India's honour. It is a charge against one diplomat accused of submitting false documents to evade the law," it said.

In a similar vein, suggesting that India was sympathising with the wrong woman, The Washington Post said: "India is siding with a woman who was in the wrong - who lied, paid her help poorly and now is brazen enough to claim that she should not be treated like a criminal."

"What's 'deplorable,' to use the prime minister's words, is not Khobragade's treatment, which was standard, but the fact that many in India aren't speaking out against the treatment of the nanny," wrote editor-producer Swati Sharma.

In a CNN commentary Friday, Jeremy Carl, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, also suggested India had "overreacted", saying "l'affaire Khobragade shines an unflattering light on several elements of India's diplomacy and its politics of privilege".

"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," Carl wrote.

However, Ruben Navarrette, CNN Contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group, wrote "US owes India apology over strip-search" saying US relationship with India is vital and shouldn't be lightly endangered.

Blaming US Marshals Service squarely for the "tense times in US-India relations," he wrote: "Questions of Khobragade's guilt or innocence can wait for another day."

"Yet, decency and common sense can be dealt with now. Those things tell us something went wrong in this case. It's up to the Obama administration to make it right before this diplomatic crisis gets any bigger," Navarrette wrote.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

Diplomat's arrest: Stand-off on as US rejects Indian demand

 (22:14)  New Delhi/Washington, Dec 20 (IANS) India and the US seemed to be back to square one in probably their worst diplomatic spat over the arrest of an Indian diplomat with Washington rejecting a key demand to drop the charges against her.

India, which has demanded an apology from the US for its treatment of envoy Devyani Khobragade, Friday indicated a softening of stance, saying it was important to preserve ties with the US and both sides were working to find a solution to the diplomatic row.

The US, even as it described the relationship with India as "incredibly important" Thursday made clear it had no plans to drop the charges of visa fraud against Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, to de-escalate the situation.

Any suggestion the State Department would be putting pressure on New York's US Attorney Preet Bharara to drop the charges "is not true," State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters in Washington when asked about such a possibility.

It was not for the State Department "to support or not support" Khobragade's prosecution, she said. "That's a decision for law enforcement and the judicial process to make."

"We certainly take these types of allegations very seriously though," Harf said. "So certainly, there's no discussion like that going on. We just want the process to move forward."

In New Delhi, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said he is in touch with his US counterpart and would come to "a logical conclusion" over Khobragade's arrest.

"My lead duty and entitlement is to be in conversation with my counterpart John Kerry, the US secretary of state. Lower than that there is also contact with the State Department and the foreign secretary," Khurshid told reporters.

He added: "I do believe that so long we are in conversation and do meaningful conversation, we will get our conversation to logical conclusion and there is an outcome one way or the other."

Khobragade has been transferred to India's Permanent Mission at the UN in New York in a bid to provide her fuller diplomatic immunity. But Harf said immunity "is not retroactive."

The State Department had "not yet received an official request through proper channels for re-accreditation," said Harf.

In New Delhi, Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh said: "You do not treat an Indian diplomat in this manner, whether it is in the US or any other country. We expect our diplomat to be given exactly the same courtesies that we extend to American diplomats or diplomat of any other country."

Khobragade has been charged with visa fraud and underpaying her house maid. She has denied the charges.

Kerry called National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon Wednesday night to express regret over the mess-up. Thursday, US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman called Sujatha Singh during which they discussed specific steps to resolve the situation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has termed as "deplorable" the humiliating arrest, strip and cavity search of Khobragade and is learnt to have directed officials to ensure "full resolution" of the issue.