The revelation, which Ms Khobragade declined to comment on, represents yet another headline-spinning turn in this absorbing melodrama. Yet none of the journalists whose sense of patriotism was outraged by the admittedly excessive search methods of US marshals when Ms Khobragade was arrested, even though the marshals happened to be female as well, appeared to think this story newsworthy. The US now enjoys a position of infamy in our pop culture's gallery of public enemies, rivalled only perhaps by Pakistan and China. So the admirable, diplomatic even-handedness with which the Khobragade family took US passports for her four-year-old and seven-year-old daughters was news alright. (Ms Khobragade's husband is a US citizen.) Sangeeta Richard was pilloried by the court of Indian public opinion for complaining when she was being paid Rs 30,000 a month. Ms Richard's allegations were seen as a ruse to get a green card. Perhaps it was, maybe it wasn't. We should now all rejoice that in this compelling Indian upstairs-downstairs soap opera with twists and turns to rival Downton Abbey - the serial about a British aristocratic family and their household help - there are no unhappy endings. Everyone, it seems, will likely achieve that hallowed status of enjoying US residency rights.
In short, the Indian Express story should have spilled all over our newspapers and set our TV channels ablaze again. Instead, it was dropped with all the ruckus of a needle falling upon a mattress. Among the mainstream press, Hindustan Times followed up - on page 12 - by interviewing Ms Khobragade's father about the matter of two passports held by his grandchildren. "When we were taking the kids to the US, we were told they were natural US citizens, they should get US passports," Uttam Khobragade said. He said that the Indian passports of his grandchildren were handed over to the Indian mission in New York once they received the US passports. "What is the big deal," added Mr Khobragade, "their mother is an Indian diplomat so they used an Indian passport."
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This comment is actually a commentary on why two countries blundered into the diplomatic fracas in the first place. The US is a country naïve enough to believe in equality before the law. It handcuffs Dominique Strauss-Kahn when he is accused of sexual assault, disregarding his exalted status as head of the International Monetary Fund. Then there is the airport tale of the late Edward Kennedy, whose name was mistakenly put on a terrorist watch list. His main concern was that it not happen to ordinary people. India, on the other hand, is a country whose founders believed in equality, but, constitutionally enshrined though the notion may be, the rest of us are mostly passionate believers in inequality.
As rousing as the spectacle of a billion Indians shouting at the world's semi-superpower in December was, I could not help wishing that behind the scenes some far-sighted mandarin was also buttering up the Chinese, lest their army was plotting to redraw our borders again. The US has many faults, and its point of view on trade and foreign policy can be self-serving, but it remains a liberal democracy and a natural ally of India's. By reacting to the Khobragade contretemps with such juvenile hysteria in December, our media has contributed to permanently damaging an important friendship.
These geopolitical matters aside, it was hard not to detect an element of jingoism, even xenophobia in all that name-calling. This is ugly anywhere, but especially so in a country as multi-ethnic and multi-religious as India. I was reminded of this recently while listening to Anita Raghavan speaking at one of New Delhi's clubs about her book on Rajat Gupta's and Raj Rajaratnam's insider trading. More than a few in the audience displayed a bizarre sympathy for the convicted felons and said they were the victims of "racial profiling".
Responding to this parallel universe version of events - the perpetrator of this "crime" of going after South Asians being Preet Bharara, the Indian-born US attorney for the southern district of New York - Ms Raghavan smiled and patiently reminded her audience that Mr Gupta had been a three-time McKinsey & Co managing partner and had risen to the pinnacle of the consulting profession in Chicago and New York. Speaking for myself, I fantasise about the day someone spirits Mr Bharara to the Indian mission at the United Nations and gives him an Indian passport before putting him on a plane to India. Manhattan is too small a place for Mr Bharara. India needs every sheriff in the world who is not intimidated by the high and mighty.