Having heard of many friend’s experiences, I completely empathize with Shah Rukh Khan’s experience at Newark Airport in the US. It is somewhat disturbing to suddenly be interrogated and made to feel like a potential terrorist.
However lets get a perspective on this. The US has a much more compassionate President in Obama, who is trying his best to reach to the Muslim people all over the world to make peace, and the world community must take that into account. But it takes time to change everything. Every country has to do what it believes it needs to protect it’s civilians. I am sure most Indians would ask for far stricter border protection at our airports to screen potential terrorist threats.
I believe what happened to Shah Rukh was a huge blunder, but what happened to our ex President Abdul Kalam was far far worse. It happened on Indian soil. But I admired the calmness with which Abdul Kalam dealt with the issue himself and displayed so much humility. I expect Shah Rukh to do the same as I am sure he will. Only he can defuse the situation.
Unlike our Cabinet Minister Ambica Soni who said we should respond with a ‘tit for tat’. What are you going to do m/s Soni ? Interrogate every American Citizen arriving at our shores for an hour and a half ? Or wait for Brad Pitt to arrive here ? Cabinet Ministers need to make more considered statements.
I do not agree with religious profiling. I still think the world (and not just the US) is Islamic Phobic. The more fear and phobia there is, the more the world will give rise to young Muslim minds that will turn to extremism. I think the US needs to reconsider how to approach the whole problem of Airport Security. Was this not what finger printing and retina photography was supposed to do at immigration ? Give the immigration officer an instant profile of the person entering the US ?
I also think President Obama and his British allies have not thought through there Afghan policies. Creating the nation of Afghanistan into a battlefield for your own perceived notions about a threat to your own security is not fair. In the course Pakistan has been taken over by fundamentalists too. Afghanistan threatens to turn into Obama’s Vietnam.
In light of which what happened to Shah Rukh is a minor incident which we should protest about, yes. Ensure that this does not happen to an Indian public figure like him again, and move on.
And President Obama, adept as he is diplomatically and politically, should invite Shah Rukh to a family dinner over beer and one of his Bollywood films.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/devyani-khobragade-case-john-kerry-calls-india-s-national-security-advisor-voices-regret-over-handli-460387?pfrom=home-lateststories
Washington: US Secretary of State John Kerry today voiced regret over the handling of the arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in a phone call to India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon amid an escalating diplomatic row between the two countries.
Ms Khobragade was handcuffed, strip-searched, swabbed for DNA, subjected to cavity search, and then placed in a cell with drug addicts following her arrest last week in New York over alleged visa fraud.
“As a father of two daughters about the same age as Devyani Khobragade, the Secretary empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from India about the events that unfolded after Ms. Khobragade’s arrest,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said after the telephonic conversation between Mr Kerry and Mr Menon.
The treatment meted out to the senior consular officer has been severely condemned by India, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling it “deplorable”.
External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, in fact, vowed to “bring back the woman diplomat arrested in New York and restore her dignity. It is my responsibility.”
An outraged New Delhi had, on Tuesday, launched a slew of reprisal measures that included paring down privileges of American diplomats in the country and removing police barricades from outside the US embassy in Delhi.
The US has, since, jumped into damage-control, stressing that Ms Khobragade’s case was an “isolated” incident.
Mr Kerry underscored that point in his call, saying that “we not allow this unfortunate public issue to hurt our close and vital relationship with India.” He also said that he believed it was important “that foreign diplomats serving in the United States are accorded respect and dignity, just as we expect our own diplomats should receive overseas.”
What now?