Dear President Obama,
Might I add my small voice to millions of other Indians in welcoming you as our guest for Republic Day? You are not, however, a wedding guest but the representative of a great superpower with whom we seek to have sound and strategic relations. The pursuit of those relations involves our availing of your presence to carry forward the Indo-US dialogue on matters big and small. I stress “big and small” because what might seem small from one perspective might be the biggest thing for those caught like tiny fish in the mesh of great matters. This is the case with the young Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, our former deputy consul general in New York.
The facts of the case are well-known. Your very competent staff can readily provide you with a one-page summary. My principal plea is that you regard this not only as relating to an Indian diplomat but also as impinging directly on the life of her husband, who is an American citizen, as also her two children who are Americans by right of birth.
These American citizens are caught in the maw of a bureaucratic catch-22. The case involving their wife/mother is being handled by the US Department of Justice (DoJ). India cannot deal directly with the US DoJ. It is obliged by protocol to restrict itself to the US Department of State (DoS) which can, if it so wishes, allow another department to interact with another government, but not without such authorisation. In the instant case, DoS has thus far refrained from intervening with DoJ. No action by the Indian diplomat or her American husband and children is possible without your personal intervention to direct the departments to look into the wider ramifications of the issue.
Illustration: Bhaskaran
In the normal course, I would leave this to our prime minister. But although his party, the BJP, then in opposition, had joined in the national outrage over the arrest, search and persecution of an officer of the Indian Foreign Service, now that it has come to high office, it has gone possum.
I am, therefore, hoping someone on your large staff will read this open letter and bring it to your attention. For all of us believe yes, you can―if you wish to. My plea with you is a humanitarian one. The lady concerned is one of whom I am sure you (and Michelle and your daughters), as believers in women’s empowerment, would want to see advance in her career. There has been no mollycoddling of her, as used to happen in the distant past when women officers were believed to be in need of protection from difficult postings. This woman has served in difficult Pakistan and dangerous Afghanistan without protest and with such professional competence that she was subsequently selected for the demanding job of deputy consul general. Please ask yourself whether you would wish to be responsible for the abrupt termination of an otherwise outstanding career that carried much promise.
Then please ask yourself whether a family should be divided by the dilemma of choosing between the US and India when, by birthright, both countries should be equally welcoming to them. Her husband has already lost his professorship at a reputable US university because of the adverse publicity that has hounded the family over the past 15 months. Should the US husband return to his country, that is, your country, he will have to leave his wife behind. He will also have to leave behind his American children because they are too young to be deprived of their mother’s love and care. Should he remain in India, the promising career he was making for himself as a respected citizen of your country will have to remain in abeyance. Should these three American citizens be put in this impossible position?
Please consider these “emotional” and “personal” issues alongside the technical issues and direct DoJ to engage with our government on finding a way out. I ask no more. I leave the rest to my government. That, surely, is not too much to ask, nor too much “audacity of hope”―even if my government is shying away from asking you for simple justice?
Yours sincerely,
A fellow human being
Aiyar, former minister, is an MP and a social commentator.