Khobragade Case

About two years ago, Devyani Khobragade, then the Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of India in New York City, was arrested by U.S. authorities for committing visa fraud and providing false statements in order to gain entry for her maid, Sangeeta Richard, to the United States (Wikipedia.org). Richard is a woman of Indian nationality and was employed to be a domestic worker for Khobragade in New York (NDTV.com). While Richard had agreed through an employment contract that Khobragade would pay an hourly salary of $9.75 and work 40 hours a week, Richard ended up being paid significantly lower than that and worked much more than 40 hours a week. When arrested, Khobragade was handcuffed in public and later body-cavity, or "strip searched", in a private setting. This was humiliating and infuriating for the Indian government, as Khobragade was considered a diplomat and held in very high regard.

A concept discussed in our textbook that I find very prevalent in this case is power distance. While in the United States, we have a relatively small power distance, meaning that we try to minimize the distinctions between various social classes, India has a higher power distance, people are raised to obey authority figures to a degree that might astonish most raised in the United States. When the officers strip searched Khobragade, they probably didn't think of her as highly as the Indian culture did, and even so, they saw searching her as a legal right and necessity since she had committed fraud and was being put in a prison. The textbook explains that lower power difference cultures support the notion that challenging authority is acceptable, and that exactly what is playing out in the Khobragade case.

Another example of power distance within this situation is that I, as a member of a small power distance culture, found it extremely unethical and upsetting that Richard was being significantly underpaid and overworked. Even though I was not raised around people who's job was being a maid or serving someone else, I still am upset by the fact that Khobragade's maid was treated so unfairly. However, maybe in a larger power distance society such as India, maids are seen as not deserving $9.75 an hour and Khobragade, a well-paid Deputy Counsel General, felt that she was paying Richard fairly for the services she was providing.

To conclude, I found this case to be an excellent example of the difficulties of culture and interpersonal communication. While the book makes it seem like it is simple to break everyone down into categories and just adjust accordingly to fit in with that category of people, there is so much more to it than that. I do believe that members from both countries and cultures were in the wrong in some ways, but ultimately what was most upsetting to me was the unfair way Richard was treated.

And on that note, I would like to finish first with a quote I really liked from an article titled Devyani Khobragade case: More than just a question of diplomatic immunity, and then provide you with some visuals that may help better understand this case in a variety of ways.

 "In international politics there is no right or wrong, only sovereignty and the power to defend it. That, however, should not be taken to mean it is a wise course of action... to send frauds to represent it in foreign capitals; it hurts the reputation of India and Indians to be represented by people who make the news for the wrong reasons." 

-Jaideep Prabhu, dnaindia.com journalist

  

Song: Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine is a song my choir is about to take on tour in a couple weeks. The song is about Leonardo DaVinci dreaming of creating a flying machine, or an airplane. He has all these amazing ideas of how incredible it could be to fly and yet he is tormented by the fact that all of his attempts fail and that he can never reach perfection. The relation I am drawing from this video to the Khobragada Case is that within the case, there is this constant battle between the United States and India to reach an agreement. Both countries want what they believe is best and both have fairly strong arguments for each side of their cases. And yet, neither ever fully come to peace with the situation. There are times in the song and in the Khobragada case where one can sense agreement getting closer, but then either the United States or India made a decision that kept a true resolution from being reached.

Video: In the Khobragade Case, I believe that if both countries would have exercised better listening skills, such as open-mindedness, patience, and acknowledgement, they could have reached a faster conclusion and dragged the problem on much less. In this video, several women are trying to teach Dwight effective listening skills. While this video is meant to be funny, it's important to note that the message behind it is legitimate. In order to be a good communicator and problem solver, one must be able to listen in a way that helps both sides of the situation understand one another and come to a plausible conclusion.

Book:https://books.google.com/books?id=Z1H20IP8mnQC&pg=PA252&dq=VIENNA+CONVENTION+ON+CONSULAR+RELATIONS&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qw3IVIG8CdK4ogTWn4GYDg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=VIENNA%20CONVENTION%20ON%20CONSULAR%20RELATIONS&f=false