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India cracks down on US embassy club in diplomatic row India cracks down on US embassy club in diplomatic row
(about 1 hour later)
India has told the US to stop allowing non-diplomats to visit a social club at its Delhi embassy, in an escalation of a row over the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York. India has ratcheted up the pressure on US diplomats in Delhi as the deadline nears for the indictment of an Indian envoy in New York charged with visa fraud and underpaying a maid.
Hundreds of expatriate Americans use the American Community Support Association club, which has a bar, swimming pool, restaurant and beauty parlour within the embassy premises. The club has been in existence for decades. Washington has been told that restaurants and other facilities at the social club in its Delhi embassy will have to close to non-diplomats and that inquiries into the tax affairs of US staff will be pursued aggressively.
A government source told Reuters the embassy must cease all commercial activities benefiting non-diplomatic staff on its premises by 16 January. The arrest last month of Devyani Khobragade, the Indian deputy consul general in New York, enraged Indians and has prompted the biggest crisis in relations between Delhi and Washington for many years.
Meanwhile, the Press Trust of India reported that India had informed the US that embassy cars would not be immune to penalties for traffic violations Tensions rose further when the prosecutor handling the case in New York issued a hard-hitting statement accusing Delhi of turning a blind eye to exploitation of domestic workers serving its envoys overseas.
India is furious at the arrest, handcuffing and strip-searching of its deputy consul in New York, Devyani Khobragade, whom prosecutors accuse of underpaying her nanny and lying on a visa application. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has expressed his "regret" over the arrest, but this falls far short of the full apology that India wants.
The row has affected diplomatic relations, with one high-level visit postponed and a visit scheduled for next week by the US energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, looking doubtful. Delhi has demanded that all charges against Khobragade be withdrawn and has applied to the US state department for permission to transfer her to its mission at the United Nations. This would give her full diplomatic immunity.
Khobragade, who was arrested on 12 December, is due to appear in court next Monday. Khobragade, 39, is accused of declaring on visa documents that she would pay the nanny she brought from India the minimum wage in New York, and then making her work long hours for a fraction of the agreed rate. Freed on payment of a $250,000 bond, she is due in court on 13 January and could face a maximum sentence of 10 years if convicted.
India says the social club's facilities operate tax-free because they are located in the embassy grounds. Her lawyer is believed to have applied for the date by which the diplomat has to be charged to be pushed back to allow discussions with prosecutors.
"The provision of such facilities to non-diplomats and not paying taxes is clearly not in accordance with the Vienna convention," the government source said. "You can't have these facilities inside and not pay taxes and allow non-diplomats." The American Embassy club is based in a vast compound located on embassy grounds in the centre of Delhi, and boasts a swimming pool, baseball pitch, stores selling imported US products and a number of restaurants. Along with the American Embassy School, it is central to the social life of families of many expatriate employees of US corporations in India.
A US embassy spokesman was not immediately available for comment. Indian officials said the latest move was "simply in line with a policy of strict recipricocity". India had already curtailed privileges offered to US diplomats to bring them in line with the treatment of Indian envoys to the US. Since December the US ambassador in Delhi can be subjected to airport frisking and most consular staff have had reduced levels of immunity.
India had already curtailed privileges offered to American diplomats to bring them in line with the treatment of Indian envoys to the US. Since December, the US ambassador in Delhi can be subjected to airport frisking and most consular staff have reduced levels of immunity. Concrete security barriers were removed from a road near the embassy last month, apparently in retaliation for the loss of a parking spot for the Indian ambassador in Washington.
Concrete barriers were removed from a road near the embassy last month, apparently in retaliation for the loss of a parking spot for the Indian ambassador in Washington. India is also preparing to take steps against the embassy school, which it suspects may be employ some staff in violation of visa requirements, government sources said.
Known as the American Embassy club, the social centre is located on embassy grounds and along with the American Embassy School is the heart of Delhi life for the families of many expatriate employees of US corporations in India. Indian diplomats recently received support from one slightly unlikely quarter – their hostile neighbour Pakistan. "In the entire world, there is only one way … the Vienna convention ought to be respected in letter and spirit by everybody," Salman Bashir, the outgoing Pakistan high commissioner, said this week.
India is also preparing to take steps against the embassy school, which it suspects may be employing staff in violation of visa requirements, the government source said. The arrest of Khobragade touches a range of sensitivities in India. Almost all middle-class households in India employ at least one, and often several, members of staff who will undertake tasks from cleaning and cooking to childcare and driving.
With few Indian diplomats paid wages that would allow them to legally employ local staff to perform such functions in postings in the west, the practice has long been for Indian workers to be flown out and paid rates that, if illegal in US and elsewhere, would be generous at home.
Preet Bharara, the prosecutor in Khobragade's case, said last month: "In fact the Indian government itself has been aware of this legal issue, and that its diplomats and consular officers were at risk of violating the law. The question then may be asked: is it for US prosecutors to look the other way, ignore the law and the civil rights of victims … or is it the responsibility of the diplomats and consular officers and their government to make sure the law is observed?"
In response to Bhahara's statement, a spokesman for India's ministry of external affairs said: "There is only one victim in this case. That victim is Devyani Khobragade, a serving Indian diplomat on mission in the United States."
There have been several previous incidents involving senior Indian diplomats in the US and domestic staff brought from India. In 2011 the Indian consul general ambassador, Prabhu Dayal, was accused by his maid of forced labour and sexual harassment, charges he called "complete nonsense" and that were later dropped.
A year earlier a US judge recommended that an Indian diplomat and her husband pay a maid nearly $1.5m in compensation for being forced to work without pay and suffering "barbaric treatment" in their luxury Manhattan apartment.
The outrage in India has been fuelled by politicians' unwillingness to seem out of step with public mood with a general election only months away.
Relations between the US and India have long been rocky, though steadily improving since a nadir in the 1970s. Barack Obama received a warm welcome on his visit in 2010. However, there remains deep suspicion of Washington in Delhi, and in India more generally, and many US officials see India as a difficult partner.
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