Sureshbhai Patel case highlights gulf between India and US
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young desi parent, pursuing the American dream, must be in want of his own parents or parents-in-law, to provide unpaid babysitting services.
Grandparents flown in from India as first time visitors are often unsuited for suburban American life, outside the immediate confines of their child's household. Often they do not know the language or the culture of an alien land. They do not know that what passes for good neighbourly interest in Ahmedabad or Agartala can be seen as menacing behaviour in a land where trespassers on private property can get shot at. Suburban American developments with its similar looking houses, huge yards and lack of visible population can be extremely confusing to Indians who are used to closely built houses, and huge populations who can be relied on to point a lost stranger in the right direction.
Sureshbhai Patel arrived in the United States on January 31, 2015. He spoke no English but was visiting his son who lived in Alabama. His 17-month-old grandson was born with a hearing defect and a grandfather's benign gaze might have been deemed helpful in his rehabilitation. Less than a week into his visit, Sureshbhai lay paralysed in a hospital bed, as a result of a spinal injury he suffered when he, despite being handcuffed, was tackled to the ground by an officer of the Madison police force.
Sureshbhai had gone for a morning walk around the development where his son lived. He probably got confused and lost his way. He tried to identify his son's house by looking into a few garages. A local resident setting off to work, and worried about leaving behind his wife in a neighbourhood with a lurking intruder, called the police. His call described Sureshbhai as a thirty year old, really skinny black man, peering into garages.
In Alabama, with its history of racism, a person of colour is by default assumed to be black. Someone brown is more likely to be taken for an Arab. The dispatcher sent a patrol car with two officers. They stopped Patel, searched him and handcuffed him. He tried to tell them that he spoke no English. Nevertheless they continued giving him spoken orders of compliance in English. At this stage, one of the officers, Eric Parker, seemed to think that a handcuffed Patel was trying to "shirk away". The well built Parker tackled Patel by the neck and brought him down to the ground. This use of disproportionate force against an unarmed, handcuffed, skinny 57-year-old grandfather caused spinal injuries to Patel leaving him paralysed and requiring spinal fusion surgery.
The entire incident was captured by the dashboard camera of a car parked nearby. The Madison police department has released both the video and an audio recording of the original call to the dispatcher. It has started disciplinary proceedings against the police officer and proposed to terminate his employment. It has also apologised to Patel's family. At the same time the Federal Bureau of investigation has joined in to examine any evidence of violations of federal laws.
The Patel family has launched a law suit for compensation and damages. Some attorneys of Indian origin in the United States have expressed concern that the City of Madison's action in firing the police officer seems to be smart legal manouvering to limit the extent of the city's liability to pay compensation for what it may claim to be the individual actions of a rogue police officer. In the meanwhile, Sureshbhai shows some signs of improvement but it will be a long haul through hospital and rehab.
Back home in India, its government seething at President Obama's homilies on religious intolerance that would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi, has now latched on to this incident to ask whether Martin Luther King would have approved of this use of disproportionate force, with racist undertones. Both supporters and detractors of the Modi government have found its response somewhat tepid, when compared to the full scale freeze that accompanied similar investigatory overkill in the arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade.
The Indian government has dispatched a consular officer to Alabama, but its reactions have been surprisingly mild apart from an expression of concern by Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs. Indian television has however stoked the embers of underlying resentment, by suggesting that America trash talks Indians and India, while being oblivious of racist brutalities in its backyard.
The incident has only highlighted that while Indians and Americans, share two great democratic traditions, their understanding of each other's cultures is at a very superficial level. A gesture that is taken for granted in India, can cause criminal law to be set into motion in America. Similarly Americans must understand that not all seeming infractions are preparatory to criminal intent especially when the suspect is very clearly an alien who does not understand the local language. America also has a problem with its law enforcement officials who revel in a macho culture of total subjugation and bringing down of all and any possible suspects. Like the Eric Garner case, where the suspect died when put into a chokehold by the New York Police department, Sureshbhai's paralyisis is a wakeup call for law-enforcement to abhor subjugation of detainees, as a matter of routine. A suspect should be taken down only if he is genuinely uncontrollable. A resort to overpowering force can lead to permanent damage, which even if unintentional, leads to far more resentment among the subjugated. What is required is a willingness to learn and respect each other's viewpoints, before rushing into precipitate action.
Hopefully in this case, Sureshbhai recovers soon, is adequately compensated, justice delivered to him and the two great estranged democracies realise that their commonalities far outweigh their differences.