What America can learn from the Indian diplomat saga: humility

Devyani Khobragade is headed back to India as tensions cool, but both countries believed they had the moral upper hand

Andrew Gawthorpe

The withdrawal of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade from her country's consulate in New York means we are entering the final stages of a row which has done unfortunate damage to Indian-American relations. Americans have met Indian outrage over the case with a mixture of bafflement and anger of their own, but what they also ought to do is consider what the case can tell them about how their own actions and power might be misunderstood overseas.

This is not to say that American officials acted wrongly in the case against Khobragade. If the allegations against her are true, then she broke US law by paying her housekeeper less than the New York minimum wage and, worse, lying about it in official documents. To Americans and indeed most Europeans, what is at stake is a simple matter of social justice – if Khobragade couldn't afford to pay her domestic help a humane wage, she shouldn't have had domestic help at all.

Many Indians don't see it the same way. Or, at least, their concerns about the rights and wrongs of the case are outweighed by their concerns over the treatment of Khobragade, who was reportedly strip-searched when she was arrested. Another common refrain is that maids like Sangeeta Richards are well-off compared to their counterparts in India itself and ought to be, as one Indian-American told The New York Times, "thankful for what [they] have".

Disputes between nations often arise because they hold mutually-incompatible truths to be self-evident. In this case, different definitions of social justice and the reasonable claims of national pride are at stake. But what is also at stake is the issue of how nations and their actions are perceived overseas – an issue the United States is no stranger to.

India is a country which is poorly understood in the west. This is the case even in Britain, despite the imperial legacy and a long, subsequent history of emigration from India. Beyond stereotypes about it being the place where the long-haired go to "find themselves", most westerners have little appreciation of the country's culture or social system. We know much more about America. This is partly because India was slow to open itself up to the outside world in the post-war era, and partly because it does not impinge on our lives in the same way the US does every day.

This accounts for the strong measure of bafflement in the US view of the Indian reaction to the Khobragade case. Such steps as removing the security barriersfrom the US embassy in New Delhi seem wildly inappropriate as a response to what most Americans would see as the routine whirring of the wheels of justice in New York City. A better understanding of India's colonial inheritance – particularly its nationalism and class structure – might have led many Americans to appreciate the sensitivities involved, even if it didn't change their views on the merits of the case.

This is something that the United States can learn from. Because the US is so powerful and so ubiquitous in today's world, it is often taken for granted that America's motives and aims are understood throughout the world. In addition, because Americans tend to believe that their government acts in the world with aims that are basically moral (although this sense may have been eroded in recent years), it is often hard for Americans to understand how anti-Americanism can be such a potent force, especially in the global south.

But American public diplomacy today faces the problem of convincing people in many countries that American foreign policy is indeed a force for good in the world. President Barack Obama has certainly faced these problems. Things such as the ongoing drone campaign in Pakistan (and beyond) and the NSA's surveillance activities make it hard to construct a positive narrative about American activity in the world.

If American officials believe these programmes are necessary, they must understand that cultural barriers and a lack of understanding about American society and its aims often impede understanding of American actions, just as India's actions in the Khobragade case seem baffling. For those who wish to see a strong, positive role for America in a world where information is increasingly available for all, and so judgement is democratised, then better explanations are in order.

They can then recapture the essence of a truth which was written by an American political philosopher decades ago: "Critics say that America is a lie because its reality falls so far short of its ideals. They are wrong. America is not a lie; it is a disappointment. But it can be a disappointment only because it is also a hope".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/10/devyani-khobragade-india-diplomat-row