The Times of India has got on the case and draws the obvious conclusions. While the US embassy has been putting out the story that the intervention of Wayne May and his wife into the Sangeeta Richard case was humanitarian, intended to save her from the malice of a thuggish Indian diplomat, the Mays’ social media chatter gives an entirely different picture of the two, one much more in keeping with the theory, proposed on this blog, that the “trafficking” case was initiated for political reasons, not humanitarian.
“The Indian ”holy cow” is a recurring theme in their entries, starting from the time Wayne May was posted in New Delhi in 2010. The first of the pictures appears in June 2010 with a comment from Wayne saying, ”No eating the sacred cows.” A little later, he adds, ”one week in country and I already miss steak.”
His wife Alicia captions another photo ”Stupid Cow.” A friend comments, ”You just insulted their cow,” to which May responds, ”Not the first time, not the last time.”
[Lila: In the post, it’s actually “you just insulted their god,” which is far more inflammatory, so I guess Times of India, trying to be a good international citizen, changed the word.]
But a short time later, she shows the kind of frustration that many Indians might also share: ”Just wait till you have to dodge these beasts in your car because they are laying in the middle of the road blocking traffic – they lose their “holiness” real fast. And, as holy as they are supposed to be, most of them are bodyline starved. It’s awful to see. Everything is a contradiction here…”
There is other banter in which enraged nationalists see signs of Indian laws being broken by the meat-loving diplomats. ”Had real American Hamburbers for dinner last night. A friend smuggled them in his suitcase last night,” Alicia Muller May writes in September 2010, soon after their arrival in India, adding, ”water buffalo burgers just aren’t cutting it. Oh, the simple pleasures of life….” Another time, she alerts her friends in Delhi to ”a good friend in Beijing who is coming to the CLO office with beautiful pearls for sale…” – which some see as evidence that embassy premises were being used for commercial activities.
In one bizarre exchange in November 2012 in response to a Huffington Post article on claims that are meat eaters being more prone to violence and sex crimes, Alicia May says ”I’d like them to do a follow up article on how many vegetarians rape women here every day.” It is the vegetarians that are doing the raping, not the meat eaters, she says, later adding, ”applies only to Indians, not westerners.”
The domestic Indian staff for whom they professedly had concern don’t come out very well either in their corrosive social media exchanges. In one photograph, it is pointed out that their pet dog Paco looks bigger and in better health than their Indian gardener. Paco, says May, gets more protein in his diet. Another times, May goes to a mosque in Delhi with two visitors where they get a VIP tour because they are from the US embassy.
“I hate the taste but I have to be polite,” she says about having to drink tea at the mosque. Her friend: ”Tea? I thought it was coffee.” ”If it tastes like rancid mushroom, don’t drink it.” Friend (who is evidently serving in Afghanistan): ”Everything is rancid in Afghanistan. That’s how you know it is farm fresh.”
To be sure, most of the exchanges are frivolous and typical of social media tattle. But given the sensitive positions they occupied in the US embassy, they are, particularly in hindsight, astonishingly offensive, robbing the couple of their “bleeding heart” credentials that is said to have led them to spirit out Sangeeta Richard’s family from New Delhi.
At BharatRakshak forum, one astute poster also suggests that May was likely CIA and used his power to prevent the Delhi police from doing anything about the criminal case filed against the maid:
“It is possible that “May” is CIA. I don’t think any diplomat will give a sh*t about a simple domestic servant dispute. He decided that he is powerful enough to teach Devyani a lesson by getting her raped. This seems to be a operation planned between May Couple along with somebody like Urza Shamim Zeya to show “who is daddy” to IFS. “May” controls a staff almost of 500 security staff and liason’s with Delhi Police.
Look at the actions of Delhi Police, they first refused to register FIR. Then after Court directed FIR, they refused to investigate or make arrests. Third they even refused to issue “look out” notices or seize passports of SK Family members. Delhi Police has 4 levels of failures in spite of Court orders and calls of Devynai father. My guess is that “May” used favors to fix some very high IPS level officers of Delhi Police. Not to forget inspite of withdrawal of immunity to US Counsels cars, Delhi Traffic Police did not take action and a specific letter had to written to them by GoI to take action, then they have taken action only for one day.”