Bhaskar Roy at The Chennai Center for China Studies:

“Many Americans cannot understand why there is such outrage in India over the arrest and treatment of Ms. Devyani Khobragade, India’s Deputy Consul general in New York, while there was no such outrage when an Indian soldier was beheaded by Pakistani soldiers on the border.

The American disbelief is not surprising. The Americans have failed to understand the strong cultural bindings, tribal relations and religious sentiments in Asian societies. American TV footage of their soldiers invading the bedrooms of Iraqis, pulling out men, women and children, and sometimes shooting the men in front of their families during the invasion of Iraq, (on concocted evidence), caused outrage. To Muslims, it is not the killing of their men so much, as invading the privacy of their women, that is an unpardonable and sacrilegious act, never to be forgotten.

Similarly, there is a misunderstanding over the status of women in India. The education of average American diplomats, media personnel, and others are based on media reports about dowry deaths, treatment of the girl child in certain levels of society etc. They do not understand that this is not part of Indian culture but forced by economic deprivation. The basic cultural concept of the worship of the “mother goddess” is completely missed. Woman is considered a well of power and compassion. In short, she is the revered “Mother” in the pages of ancient Indian texts and scriptures as in the prayer “Oh, mother! We bow before thee”.

Devyani Khobragade is that Indian “woman” for the people of India. It is not the arrest of Ms. Khobragade, but the strip search and cavity search of a “woman” representative of India. Figuratively, an Indian woman “molested” and “raped” by the American system.”