Agreement 1 was signed first. This Agreement 1 was the one that Khobragade broke. This Agreement 1 entailed paying US minimum wage and had clauses that protected the maid. It was this Agreement 1 that was presented to the US embassy in Delhi to get the maid a US visa.
Did this Agreement 1 require the maid to return to India if she quit her job? How is quitting her job an act of “cheating”?
Within a few days of the maid quitting her job, the powerful Indian establishment gets compliant Courts to issue sundry orders on what appear to be spurious and motivated grounds. And you are being generous indeed in repeatedly pointing out on this board that the maid was welcome to return to India and do X, Y or Z.
So if a woman leaves her husband, who beats her once a week, and moves in with someone who only beats her once a month, she isn’t being mistreated?
No, she would have been better off if she weren’t mistreated, because she would have been making the minimum wage. Everyone would have been better off, in fact, because then her employer would not have lied about it.
What you don’t seem to realize is that there is no exception to the minimum wage laws in NYC for people who come from countries that pay their domestic help a pittance. If you work in NYC, you must be paid the minimum wage.
It’s very important. Because when they were putting together this contract, they should have recognized that the minimum wage is the least they can legally pay their domestic staff in NYC.
You know, that actually does help me understand what’s going on. It’s a matter of where we place our reference lines for zero. For me naturally the reference line for neutral is her situation in India. Since she’s doing better than that, I take it to be a positive. Since for all of you, the reference line is American minimum wage, all of you take anything below that to be negative. I still think it’s the incorrect position to take - without this ‘husband’ stepping in and taking her to America, she would have been beaten twice a week. It was never an option that she not be beaten at all.
There is no question that she would have been MUCH better off had she been paid American minimum wage. But I repeat - to be paid minimum wage would have made this woman’s services unaffordable. She would have continued to stay on in India at the Indian wage that she was making(although I believe she was actually unemployed at the time).
But I absolutely do realise it. I absolutely agree with you that this is something that the consular officer should not have done. What you don’t realise is that I’m not asking that an exception be made in law. I’m asking that the moral outrage on behalf of the ‘victim’ be toned down.
No. But in practice, elite breaking is treated different from subaltern breaking.
I have studied Indian law in India, though am not a lawyer. I am an Indian living in the US for 2 decades+, with a green card for 9 years+, and eligible to apply for US citizenship since April 2009.
I have done graduate studies in India, worked there, then came to the US, completed my PhD and am working as an academic.
I have volunteered the above info, not because I believe who makes a claim ought to count, but to let anyone who may think of misleading you to think at least twice.
Looking at comments on India newspaper sites, I’d say that lots of people are siding with labor:
And a lot of the people who are siding with management aren’t doing so because of being against workers rights, but because of being skeptical of American justice.
Aside from the stamp duty, this sounds a lot like my suburb, which works hard to keep city kids from getting places in our lavishly (compared to Philadelphia) funded schools. Despite my neighborhood being heavily Democratic, keeping school district borders sacrosanct is an extremely popular policy.
Evading Pennsylvania sales tax, whether through internet purchases or buying in Delaware, is also popular, although hardly limited to the top decile.
It was on the table until Khobragade (or if you prefer, the consulate) took it off the table. It’s also worth noting that the U.S. was not told Richards would be paid the minimum wage - they were told she would be paid substantially more. If Khobagrade or her bosses believed this was a defensible arrangement, why lie? Why have Richards sign a contract that said she would not bring any legal action ahead of time?
You said Richards is the only person who is now better off than she was before. During Richards’ employment, Khobrahade was better off, too: she got a servant she couldn’t really afford. The reason she’s no longer better off is that she got caught.
Mostly true- assuming she can get anyone to believe her while avoiding sanctions from her home country.
Yes. That being the case, it’s hard for me to feel “the lady” got a bad deal here.
Retired Indian Foreign Service, an elite group of Govt officers in India, arguably the most elite, after having served at high positions, have been making ridiculous statements on Indian TV on the issue.
One guy says US has double standards because it is insisting on US min wage for work done on US soil, but does not pay US min wage to US embassy/consulate personnel in India.
Another is suggesting that Indian Govt enforce payment of US min wage to US embassy/consulate personnel.
I used to think it was the Taliban that had such high IQ.
My family probably is also one of the many hundreds of millions of people, who come from humble background and have benefited from it. When I was born, we used to live in a congested, not-so-clean locality in a rented house. I studied for free in Govt. schools and colleges.
Within 20 years, we had 4 houses in pretty good localities, 3 are rented out. The education system here enabled me to work for a US MNC (which is a household name around the world) and work on developing OSes which most of us are using today (I do not intend to give credit to myself credit or mean that I’ve done something great - don’t think I have. Thought it would be a nice example to present here).
The problem with this nonsense you keep repeating (aside from the many things already mentioned) is that it’s just not true in the eyes of the person that matters most here, and who would have the best perspective to judge. That person is the maid. If this was so clearly a better proposition for her, why did she quit? Even after putting aside your debatable implication that more money equals a better situation, I just don’t see how you, as a bystander, can say the maid was better off when it’s pretty clear she didn’t think so. Explain to me why the maid quit if she was so much better off? I suppose she might have just become greedy after working there for a while, but most rational people weight the alternatives before disappearing in a foreign country with little money while being sought by powerful people who have the means and desire to threaten your family and destroy your livelihood. This isn’t some athlete sitting out a few games for a new contract. She is viewed as a pariah by many in her own country and has little in the way of resources as a result. I am sure she could reasonably expect much of that, so I don’t see how leaving a situation you allege was demonstrably better makes any sense whatsoever.
And it’s doubly galling to imply that the maid intended to exploit the situation from the beginning for her benefit. The chances of this situation unfolding as it has are really low.
The ransacking of the pizza restaurant was by members of what is called the Republican Party of India (RPI) that bats for the interests of descendants of former untouchables in the state (Maharashtra) that Khobragade hails from. She belongs to the same caste (Mahar) that the father of affirmative action in India (Ambedkar) came from. The Mahar caste members have a martial history, have served in the Indian army for long, and many are now middle class. Unfortunate that a party like RPI is copying privileged caste/class behavior now.
India is on election mode now. National elections are due in 5 months. So every political party is on competitive nationalism mode. Plus, this case involves a privileged service (the Indian foreign service) and the accused is a former untouchable - that makes it easier to score points by being obdurate and whipping up passions.
In the Khobragade case, the elite Indian bureaucracy moved with speed to make trumped up charges (deceit, cheating, conspiracy) against the maid in India within days of her quitting her job on June 23 2013, and getting compliant courts in India to get an arrest warrant against the maid. Her husband in India was also harassed and intimidated. He is now in the US with the children and a key witness for the US public attorney.
And we have had repeated suggestions by a member on this board that the maid is welcome to go to India as a regular Indian and do X, Y and Z when she will be arrested upon landing. The elite Indian establishment is quite good at muzzling anyone that challenges them.
As for the substance: She wasn’t the consul general, and the cavity search allegation is denied by the New York authorities. I’m not saying you should believe New York authorities, but how about alleged cavity search?
If true, there’s a small scandal right there, even if the opposite of the one you see. If I was arrested I should be accorded equal courtesies – no better, no worse.
You could however say that, even if Bharara is being truthful, the scandal isn’t that she was treated with courtesy, but that all those arrested, and thus presumed innocent, aren’t treated with similar courtesy.