US and India in diplomatic tiff

Tit for tat appears to be how this is being handled. We expelled one of their diplomats and now they are returning the favor. Here is the short version of whats going on for those who don't keep up with Foreign Affairs.

An Indian diplomat in the US was recently accused by her maid of not paying her fair wages. Apparently the maid, who is Indian, signed a contract agreeing to work for her boss in the US with the understanding she would be paid US minimum wage and given reasonable time off. This is required when foreign diplomats import labor from outside of the United States. She contends that she was subsequently forced by her employer to sign a new contract and was only paid about $3.00 an hour and required to work very long hours with no overtime and little time off. The diplomat denies this.

In any case New York treated it as a crime and arrested the Indian diplomat and not only handcuffed her but subjected her to a strip search and at least briefly to incarceration. The Indian government, fully backed by popular outrage, was livid.

My take: Up to a point India was absolutely right to be ticked off. This was a crystal clear violation of diplomatic immunity guaranteed under the Treaty of Vienna. Said treaty provisions are an extremely important article of international law and we DO NOT want to mess with it, even if it sometimes means dirtbags get to walk. The correct way to handle this would have been to declare her persona non grata, which in the end is what happened.

On a side note, most Indians seem to have little sympathy for the victim in all of this which I find unfortunate. Their view is that she being from India was making much more, even at her reduced wages, than most domestic workers ("servants" in traditional parlance) in India. Of course that is completely irrelevant. She was not in India. If Indian diplomats want to employ people at wages customary in their country, they may do so, IN THEIR COUNTRY.

This is not India and I frankly don't care where the poor girl came from. In this country if you hire someone you have to obey the relevant labor laws. If you can afford it I have no issue with engaging domestic help, as long as you pay them an honest and fair wage.

Part of me wonders if this lady diplomat didn't spend a little too much time watching Downton Abbey. Back in Lord Grantham's day a maid could reasonably expect a wage of perhaps £25.00 per annum with a half day off per week and a half day, gratis, on Boxing Day plus room and board. In exchange she could look forward to an average day of rarely less than 16 hours of backbreaking work.

Of course back then India was a British colony and a lot of those servants were Indians.