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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Amarna

Riflessioni: India’s Religious Other

01 Fri May 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Society, South Asia, Theory & Philosophy

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Akhenaten, Amarna, Amenhotep IV, Apollo, Atargatis, धर्म तथा समाजवाद, धर्म संस्कृत और राज्य, Christian, Christianity, Cybele, David Hume, dharma, dharma sanskriti aur rajya, dharma tatha samajwad, Die Mosaische Unterscheidung: oder der Preis des Monotheismus, Egypt, Eric Santner, faith, gentile, Greece, Gurudutt, Hinduism, infidel, ISIS, Islam, Jan Assmann, Jesus, Jew, Judaism, monotheism, Mosaic distinction, Muslim, pagan, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, Parmenidean distinction, Parmenides, polytheism, primary religion, purushartha, Ra, religion, Rome, sarva dharma samabhava, secondary religion, secularism, Serapis, The Natural History of Religions, The Psychotheology of Everyday Life, Theo Sundermeier, universalism, Utu, Was ist Religion? Religionswissenschaft im theologischen Kontext, Werner Jäger, Yahweh

One often hears Indian traditionalists argue that not all religions are equal, that the Sanskrit dharma does not translate as the English religion. In essence, the Gandhian phrase, sarva dharma sama bhava, which is considered the root of Indian secularism (though it speaks more to pluralism, actually), does not apply to the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Why are the latter two of these three religions – Judaism presents a complication that will be discussed later – considered as “outsiders” to the subcontinent despite having existed in the subcontinent for over a thousand years? In India, what passes for debate and discussion on this issue in the public sphere has so far been high on politicisation and wanting in scholarship. In academia, however, ironically even the Western variety that many Indian traditionalists like to ignorantly scoff at, there have been some articulate expositions of why the Abrahamic religions are fundamentally different from and unequal to the faith systems of the cultural Indosphere and elsewhere. The argument runs that the differences between the two groups are not simply about what to call the sine qua non (G-d) or even if it is indeed sine quibus non (many gods) but involve a radical difference in views on the political order as well.

How Many Gods?

Theo Sundermeier, professor of theology at Heidelberg University, makes an insightful distinction between religions in his Was ist Religion? Religionswissenschaft im theologischen Kontext between primary and secondary religions. The former, Sundermeier explains, developed over hundreds if not thousands of years, usually within a single culture, society, and language with which the religion is inextricably intertwined. These would include the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian religions as easily as Hinduism. The latter category of religions are those that originate from an act of revelation or foundation and are monotheistic, universal, and of the Book. Secondary religions denounce primary religions as paganism, a collection of superstitions, and idolatry. The three Abrahamic faiths fit this description well.

This seemingly obvious categorisation holds an evolution of great import – from primary to secondary, religion changes from being a system that is irrevocably embedded in the institutional, linguistic, and cultural conditions of a society to become an autonomous system that can transcend political, ethnic, and other boundaries and transplant itself into any alien culture. As Jan Assmann, an Egyptologist at the University of Konstanz, describes in his Die Mosaische Unterscheidung: oder der Preis des Monotheismus, this change, which he calls the Mosaic distinction, is hardly about whether there is one god or there are many gods but about truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance. Monotheistic faiths rest firmly on the distinction between their true god and the falseness of other gods; their truth does not stand in a complementary relationship to other truths but relegates any such claims to the realm of falsehood. They are exclusive, antagonistic, and explicitly codified and clearly communicated. As Assmann explains, the truth to be proclaimed comes complete with an enemy to be fought – only they know of “heretics and pagans, false doctrine, sects, superstition, idolatry, magic, ignorance, unbelief, heresy, and whatever other terms have been coined to designate what they denounce, persecute and proscribe as manifestations of untruth.” Secondary religions do not evolve from primary religions – rather, the emergence of the former represents a revolution, a rupture with the past that uncompromisingly divides the world between “Jews and Gentiles, Christians and pagans, Christians and Jews, Muslims and infidels, true believers and heretics.”

Truth and Falsehood

Such orthodoxy was unknown to the followers of primary religions and they found secondary religions intolerant. Indeed, this is an age-old argument that has been most vividly captured perhaps by David Hume in The Natural History of Religions. What is the root of such unyielding intolerance, or to put it in more sympathetic terms, conviction in their version of the truth? Assmann argues that the Mosaic distinction created an entirely new category of truth – faith – and draws an interesting parallel with a scientific development that Werner Jäger, a 20th century classicist at Harvard University, described as the Parmenidian distinction in Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Parmenides was a Greek philosopher who lived in the 6th century BCE and articulated something that is so taken for granted today in science that it would be difficult to imagine a world without such an obvious principle: Being is, and Notbeing is not; that which is cannot not be, and that which is not cannot be. Thus, knowledge is based on the distinction between true and false cognition and the irreconcilability between the two. In a sense, we can speak of scientific knowledge as intolerant too, as Hume did of monotheism.

Before the Mosaic distinction, knowledge and faith were not separate concepts. Pagans knew their gods but did not believe in them for they were not objects of faith; like myths, they were unverifiable to science but not necessarily devoid of knowledge. Before the Mosaic distinction, there were four kinds of fundamental truth: experiential (water is wet), mathematical (two plus two is four), historical (the life of Mokshagundam Visveswaraya), and truths conducive to life (ethics). The Mosaic distinction cleaved faith from knowledge and installed the former as a fifth truth that claimed knowledge of the highest authority even if it could not be verified on scientific grounds. The psychological and social impact of this differentiation is most visible in how Greek or Hindu science never conflicted with its philosophy, myths, or religious practices – each operated in their own domain. In fact, there are several anecdotes of highly acclaimed Hindu scientists subscribing to superstitions – S Ramanujan’s belief in astrology and CV Raman’s concern about the ill-effects of a solar eclipse come most readily to mind. But the monotheistic preoccupation with untruth in conjunction with faith-as-truth caused much acrimony in Christendom and the dar al-Islam.

Alterity and Exclusion

Were the conflict between primary and secondary religion merely about how many gods there were, the world might have been spared much strife. Hans Zirker, emeritus professor of theology at the University of Duisburg-Essen, sees monotheism as also a statement against being influenced by strife between divine powers, being divided permanently between a dualism of Good and Evil, or being trapped in the incessant wars of self-affirmation of pluralist people. This is the political dimension of monotheism. Eric Santner, professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago, suggests that the universalism of monotheism is imposed upon all, thereby forcing them to acquiesce to the Mosaic distinction or to be regarded as failures. In The Psychotheology of Everyday Life, an obvious play on the title of Sigmund Freud’s work on psychopathology, Santner makes a case for the stranger – pagan? – to be the Other not for his spatial exteriority but because of his internal alterity. Externalities could be tolerated or influenced but internal alterity was far more insidious as it challenged faith-as-truth.

What makes Judaism different from Christianity and Islam, Assmann argues, is that Jews posit this universalism to be implemented at a messianic end-time whereas Christianity and Islam see it as an event at the time of their foundation. Judaism is no less exclusive than its Abrahamic descendents but as a result of a future date of redemption, Jewish communities have excluded themselves from the social and cultural customs of local gentile populations. Self-isolation has no need to resort to violence or persecute those with differing beliefs; for the Jews, goyim were free to worship whomever they wished. As a result Jewish communities have existed in harmony amidst pagan societies or found themselves to be co-victims of their own monotheistic cousins, alongside pagans, in the lands which came to be dominated by secondary religion.

In contrast, Christianity and Islam excluded the pagan rather than themselves. The Great Commission of Christianity and the Islamic obligation of da’wah not only excludes the pagan but directly puts them on a path of conflict. This intolerance stems from the absolute certitude that faith brings to Christianity and Islam. As Assmann points out, it makes no sense to talk of tolerance in pagan systems because there is no notion of incompatibility: one can tolerate something that is incompatible and irresolvable with one’s own views but how does one tolerate something that is not so steadfastly oppositional?

Translatability

Among the practitioners of primary religions, there has always been a translatability of divinity – the cosmology of different communities was believed to be compatible with each other. In a practice that has been the norm since at least Sumerian times, pagan communities sealed contracts upon oaths to their gods – for example, if the Akkadians wanted to consecrate a treaty with the Egyptians, the former would swear by Utu and the latter by Ra, the solar deities of their respective civilisations. There was no question of the falsehood of the other’s cosmology. The worship of each others’ gods was not unknown either – the Egyptian goddess Isis had a popular cult in Rome and the Syrian Atargatis and Phrygian Cybele and followers all around the Mediterranean. Usually, these gods would travel to foreign lands with traders and with increasing commerce and familiarity, would be established in the local pantheon as well. In the Indian context, the spread of Vedic Hinduism in India occurred along similar lines. The philosophical precepts of the Vedic Hindus were laid over the beliefs of the local communities and their gods were integrated into the Vedic pantheon. Many temples in Indian and Sri Lankan villages are dedicated to gramadevate – village deities – the legends behind whom trace their lineage back to a Puranic deity.

This is not to say that there were no conflicts among pagans – there were, and quite a few, but to go to war over theological differences was incomprehensible to them. In fact, conquerors often stole the idols of the vanquished to re-consecrate the deities back home with the dignity due them. Hercules has thus been around the Mediterranean quite a few times in the wars of Phoenicia, Greece, Carthage, and Rome. Religion, however, functioned as a medium of communication rather than as a criterion to exclude and eliminate. Varro, the Roman scholar who lived at the end of the 2nd century BCE, did not understand the need to distinguish between Jupiter and Yahweh as “the names are of no importance so long as the same thing is intended.” The Mosaic distinction prevented this translatability for Allah could never be Zeus nor Jesus be Apollo. This is another political ramification of monotheism.

Dominus Unum

The Mosaic distinction, if understood correctly, is, thus, a new political order rather than a cosmological order. The importance of this can be seen in that the primus inter pares status of the Abrahamic god and the prohibition of graven images is cemented in the first two of the ten commandments in every version. According to Assmann, this implies that monotheism does not deny the existence of other gods but merely holds them to be false and their worship, therefore, is not meaningless but disloyalty. The former is a cognitive category, a matter of knowledge, while the latter is a political category. In essence, one could not serve two masters. Christians themselves felt the repercussions of this tenet during the Reformation in the Early Modern era when Catholics were viewed with suspicion by monarchs belonging to the breakaway sects.

Historically, monotheistic faiths made outlandish accusations against pagan religions to keep their base radicalised while turning one community against another. The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, for example, spoke of pagans sacrificing their children in sacrifices and secret ceremonies, living in communities defined by adultery, murder, theft, corruption, and all other manner of immoral behavior. Idols, the faithful are told, is the beginning of spiritual fornication and the corruption of life. Thus, idolatrous religions are depicted as completely lacking in ethical orientation. Though this critique might be dated to a specific period of monotheistic radicalisation during the third century, it nonetheless lays claim to proper worship and ethical conduct. This dispute is not merely about the number of gods one worships but about the negation of all gods but one. Strictly speaking, most polytheistic faiths do not claim there to be many gods but that a singular divine presence animates itself in many ways. In that sense, the unity of divinity is not a monotheistic invention. However, the monotheistic spiritual binary is incapable of allowing for a primary god and several subordinate gods – it must insist on the exclusion of all gods but theirs.

There was no such paranoia in the lands where primary religions flourished. Monarchs patronised all religions in their kingdom despite their personal beliefs. Admittedly, at times, some received greater favour than others but never was a faith and its adherents exiled or made into second class subjects. Such pluralism was evident even in recent times. In Nepal, during the monarchy, Hindu and Buddhist holy days were both observed despite the official status of the state as Hindu and an overwhelming portion of the population – about 85 per cent – being Hindu. The closeness between the Hindu and Buddhist communities has historically been so great that it is difficult to demarcate the two in terms of social customs even today. During the famous Bunga Dyah Jatra festival in Laliptur, for example, the Hindu kings of Nepal participated during the climactic Bhoto Jatra phase during which they had to climb up the ceremonial chariot and display a sacred vest to the crowds.

Disenchanting the World

Another reason monotheism stands as the Other is that unlike polytheistic faiths, it disenchants the world. Pagan myths usually involved humans cavorting with the gods, in war as well as in love. This entanglement gives structure to the cosmos, describing its oppositional and synergetic forces in a manner that can be easily grasped by all. Furthermore, the gods bring order to society: with each trade, settlement, and resource associated with a patron deity, a network of duties and obligations is created. Each cult, so to speak, must be balanced with others in the greater community. As Assmann argues, this can even be extended to human destiny in that the stories of the gods give meaning to human relations as well. “By telling stories about the gods, myths bring order to human life.” Polytheism is synonymous with cosmotheism, and the divine cannot be divorced from the world. It is this theology that monotheism attacks. The divine is liberated from its ties to the cosmos, society, and the people, and in its place is the relationship of the individual with a divinity that stands outside the world, time, and space. Monotheism changes not only the image of god but man’s image of himself as well; instead of being in a seamless and symbiotic relationship with nature, he now stands alone but above it, to rule over it freely and independently, subservient only to a true god. To secondary religions, divinity is transcendent whereas for primary religions, it is immanent. Through this distinction between transcendence and immanence, the mosaic distinction also achieves a distinction between man and the world.

Ethics, the Law, and Justice

The disruption from culture and history, the certitude of a new type of truth, the exclusive rejection of other gods, the falsehood and criminality of the Other, the demand of fealty, and the disenchantment of the world pave the way to one of monotheism’s most important claims – that it is the religion of justice. Again, this is a political rather than theological claim. The key point of this claim is that ethics gained entry into religion precisely through biblical monotheism since the gods of Babylon, Assyria, or Rome had nothing to do with ethics in this sense. For the first time in history, justice, law, and freedom are declared to be the central themes of religion and the sole prerogative of god. Though technically true, this is a misleading statement. The monotheistic point of view is that since god is the true authority, only he can be the final arbiter of justice; the temporal laws of man are inferior to the divine. The story of the exodus from Egypt ties in well with ideas of liberation of the Jewish people from slavery. Furthermore, their escape, divinely sanctioned, also took the power to sit in judgment over them away from the pharaoh and invested it in god. The Shemot, or the Book of Exodus, is thus more concerned with political theology than with idolatry (the story of the golden calf). Thus, in monotheism, the political role of justice was given to religion. The authority of the king was superseded by that of the high clergy, god’s representatives on earth, as papal power well into the Early Modern era demonstrated. This fusion of the political with the religious in secondary religions but not primary belief systems is exactly what makes secularism a requirement solely of the former in the modern era.

In pagan religions, justice was of this world for even the gods were of this world. A Roman or an Egyptian who had been wronged could appeal to the local magistrate for justice for its own sake without reference to the gods. Indeed, in Hinduism, dharma is not only properly a function of kaala, desha, and paristhiti but the chaturanga purusharthas mention it along with artha and kama as one of the three goals of mortal life. The ultimate goal, moksha, is beyond short-term earthly consideration. As Hindi novelist Gurudutt explains in धर्म तथा समाजवाद (dharma tatha samajwad) and धर्म संस्कृत और राज्य (dharma, sanskriti, aur rajya), the individual is free to interact with the divine in a manner of his choosing but wherever he must interact with another, their conduct must be guided by the precepts of dharma, artha, and kama. Ethics and the law were intrinsically this-worldy and had no business to be under divine purview. Thus, justice, or ethics at least, existed much before secondary religions came on the scene but were not truly a part of the religious system.

In a world enchanted, this caused no philosophical problems. The famous story of Indra, the king of the Hindu pantheon, being cursed by Gautama Maharishi for seducing his wife, Ahalya, illustrates how virtue reigns even above the gods in Hinduism. Monotheism did not usher law, justice, or ethics into the world; these had long been in existence. Yet monotheism first made justice a matter of direct interest to god; before then, the world had not known a law-giving god. Any claim that law, morality, and justice are terrestrial and not celestial goods still arouses feelings of deep unease in theological circles; even today, the Church defends the dogma of the inseparable unity of monotheism and justice.

*     *     *     *     *

Behind the Mosaic distinction between true and false in religion, there ultimately stands the distinction between god and the world. This worldview is not only fundamentally alien to Hindus but it is also antithetical and inimical to their way of thinking. The emphasis of secondary religions on universalism and all its attendant political baggage keeps them at an arm’s length from the pagan practices of the subcontinent. Were the rejection of Christianity and Islam by Indian traditionalists merely a matter of geography, it would be silly. Yet the grounds for suspicion and Otherness are twofold – a predatory proselytism of exclusive monotheisms and the entire cosmology of secondary religions. Neither of these traits have mellowed over the 1,000+ years secondary religions have been in India, and until they do, the two religions will remain outsiders to the Indosphere.

*I would like to express my gratitude to Rangesh Shridhar for reading through the first draft of this essay and countless hours of debate, discussion, and hair-pulling!


This post appeared on FirstPost on May 11, 2015.

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The Diplomatic Venture

20 Fri Dec 2013

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Opinion and Response

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Alberico Gentili, Alexios III, Amarna, Antoine de Noailles, Armand Jean du Plessis, Bernardino de Mendoza, Byzantium, Cardinal Richelieu, Cicero, Congress of Vienna, Daruis I, Devyani Khobragade, Digest, diplomacy, diplomatic immunity, Diplomatic Privileges Act, Exchange v McFaddon, Fourth Crusade, Herodotus, Homer, India, ius gentium, Julius Caesar, jure gestionis, jure imperii, lex Iulia de vi publica, Mattueof Affair, Renaissance, Sir Edward Coke, Testament Politique, Treaty of Lodi, United States, Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Wyatt Rebellion, Xenophon

Since the arrest and subsequent handcuffing and strip searching of India’s Acting Consul in New York, Devyani Khobragade, several editorials and blogs have appeared – mostly in the United States but some in India too – that suggest that India’s outrage over the incident is grossly misplaced. They argue that the acting consul’s maid was underpaid and draw attention to India’s epidemic of labour abuse. Many also pointed out that the mistreatment of Khobragade is a minor issue which is not worth jeopardising relations between the two countries. A few suggested that the whole kerfuffle is a cultural misunderstanding between a law-abiding United States and an India governed by an elite class of people.

Despite the battological barrage that has ensued, most have missed the crux of the issue (with the notable exception of Husain Haqqani). Undoubtedly, many in India see the poor treatment of their emissary as an issue of national prestige; some are using it as another political weapon in the country’s vicious politics. It is, nonetheless, a banal observation that this or any one issue not be allowed to undermine an entire relationship. The problem is certainly one of cultural misunderstanding, not about law-abiding or elitist societies but about the very status of the diplomatic venture.

The history of diplomacy is probably as old as the history of conflict, but the earliest surviving written records go back to a set of clay tablets from Amarna, around 1300 BCE. Not yet a profession and lacking the modern institutional structure, the goals of diplomacy were nonetheless much the same – conflict resolution, periodic alliance formation, and the facilitation of trade. There was also a firm belief in the sacrosanct status of a foreign envoy, and they were not only considered immune from local laws but were to be treated well.

As Harold Nicholson supposes, it must have become apparent that negotiations would be severely hampered if the emissary from one side were killed by other side before he had time to deliver his message. “The practice must therefore have become established even in the remotest times that it would be better to grant to such negotiators certain privileges and immunities which were denied to warriors.”

For example, Mesopotamian diplomatic protocol required that the visiting envoy be provided troops for protection along his journey. Once, when a king was angered by an envoy’s message and sent him off without providing for his safety, the offence was seen as so great that it was taken as a breaking of diplomatic ties.

Homer referred to envoys as the messengers of Zeus and men, and Xenophon remarked that they were worthy of all honour. Cicero commented that ambassadors are so sacred and venerable that they should be able to go unharmed among allies as well as enemies. Roman law considered a legate inviolable, first by ius gentium (common law), and later via the legal codices of the lex Iulia de vi publica and Justinian’s Digest. As one anonymous text states, “When [envoys] are sent to us, they should be received with honour and liberality, for everyone treats envoys with respect.”

However, this protocol did not go unbroken. The Amarna system did not recognise immunity legally but extended it as a privilege and part of their customs of hospitality. The Greeks did not recognise diplomatic immunity as a legal right either but extended it as politeness to any guest. Nonetheless, safe conduct was common and behaviour to the contrary was an aberration criticised even by some in the host state.

The killing of envoys by Athens and Sparta marked the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, and the Dalmatian refusal to grant Rome’s ambassadors hospitality and attempt to rob them of their horses in 157 BCE became a pretext for war. When Julius Caesar launched a surprise attack on some German tribes he was pretending to negotiate with, Cato demanded that Caesar be ritually surrendered to the enemy. Famously, as Herodotus narrates, Darius I refused to execute his Spartan envoys in response to Sparta’s execution of his because he “would not make havoc of all human law.”

The Roman diplomatic method did not survive the fall of the Empire largely because its foreign relations with neighbouring countries were conducted from a colonial and administrative perspective rather than a strictly diplomatic one. Roman laws on inviolability, however, continued to inform Europe long after the fall of the eternal city. A medieval Burgundian law, for example, declared that envoys were sacred and that they were to be given food, shelter, animals (for transport), and even entertained for the night!

Byzantium serves as a grim reminder to those who pooh-pooh diplomatic protocol. Although Constantinople would not harm foreign emissaries, it was their belief that envoys from powerful countries should be treated roughly and “inadvertently” only see the army and economic well-being of the state, while emissaries from weaker states should be shown the grandeur of Constantinople and sent back with gifts and praise. They believed that this would win weak states over to their sphere of influence and intimidate the strong states. In one case, an envoy from Otto I of the Holy Roman Empire was delayed from entering Constantinople, placed under house arrest in an uncomfortable apartment upon entry, and worse (his words, not mine), given poor quality wine to drink.

Over time, resentment towards the Byzantines grew and there was always friction between Europe’s Crusader armies and the Byzantines. Eventually, the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in the reign of Alexios III and ruled the city from 1204 to 1261. Later, when the Byzantines were again under threat from the Arabs, Seljuks, and Ottomans, they found themselves isolated and the Christian Western European kingdoms were reluctant to do much in their defence.

It was during the Renaissance that the diplomatic arts started to resemble their modern appearance. After the Treaty of Lodi in 1454, the five main powers of Italy – Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papacy, and Naples – decided that peace was best maintained by a “diplomatic alertness.” To this end, they established permanent embassies in other territories whose staff would report back with news of the economy, relations of their hosts with other powers, and rumours of any preparation for war. As economies grew and states grew more enmeshed with each other, permanent missions made more sense than the ad hoc system of the Greeks.

It was during the reign of Louis XIII of France that Cardinal Richelieu wrote his Testament Politique. In an uncanny echo of Yes, Prime Minister‘s Sir Humphrey (diplomacy is about surviving until the next century; politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon), Richelieu argued that diplomacy should be a continuous process whose goal should be creating durable relationships rather than attempting to make short-term opportunistic advances.

Although their framework was different, the Italo-French schools of diplomacy leaned heavily on their predecessors for a foundation. Representatives were still considered inviolate and Richelieu argued that the national interest should override any personal dislike of the emissaries sent or their masters. The famous jurist Hugo Grotius also opined that even if the ambassadors broke local laws, the security of ambassadors outweighed any advantage which accrued from a punishment.

There was, however, some resistance to the absolute immunity diplomats enjoyed, most notably in England. The eminent jurist Alberico Gentili, an Italian Protestant who migrated from Italy to England with his father because of his faith, and Sir Edward Coke argued that foreign emissaries were no better than the ordinary citizens of their host countries and should be governed by the same laws as everyone else. In any case, diplomatic immunity under English law did not exist until the passing of the Diplomatic Privileges Act in 1708; until then, it was at the discretion of the Crown and usually bilaterally guaranteed by treaty.

Pragmatism, however, bound England to the common European understanding of diplomatic protocol – when the French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles, to the court of Queen Mary was discovered to be plotting her overthrow during the Wyatt Rebellion, he was not prosecuted and allowed to return to France. Similarly, in 1586, when Spain’s ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I, Bernardino de Mendoza, was caught conspiring against her, England allowed the man safe passage back to Spain against Gentili’s advice. In the famous Mattueof affair in 1708, the accosting of the Russian ambassador to England by debt collectors led to their arrest for assaulting and arresting a foreign dignitary.

With interaction between countries increasing, the diplomatic class grew in size. Abuses of immunity that had been tolerable if only for their rarity became more difficult to bear. States agreed to legislation reducing the immunity of their representatives. The 1812 Exchange v McFaddon case in the US Supreme Court for the first time separated actions performed in the service of the state (jure imperii) from actions performed in private (jure gestionis), and in 1815, the Congress of Vienna created classes of emissaries, separating ambassadors from ministers from charges d’affaires. These two decisions would greatly influence the drafters of the Vienna conventions on diplomatic and consular relations in the early 1960s.

The inviolability of the envoy is as ingrained in Eastern cultures as it is in the West. The Manu Smriti and the Arthashastra are both quite clear on the immunity of the envoy. More famously perhaps, in the Mahabharata, the horror of the Hastinapura court when they learn of Duryodhana’s plot to kidnap Krishna, who had come as an envoy from the Pandavas in Upaplavya, illustrates the status of emissaries in the East.

It is the violation of this long diplomatic tradition that has offended many people. The bombastic tone adopted by the usually understated Indian Foreign Service may perhaps also be explained by this. As one columnist pointed out, Indian diplomats have served in far more dangerous environments and faced worse, but the Visigothic barbarism of a friendly power towards an Indian acting consul general shocked the Indian establishment.

Barring threats to the security of the realm, and sometimes even then, historically, states have chosen not to arrest, humiliate, prosecute, or execute a foreign emissary. In 1569, the Spanish ambassador to England, Guerau de Espés del Valle, was implicated in the Ridolfi plot – he was detained shortly and then deported. In 1571, the Bishop of Ross was found to be conspiring against the English monarch – he was also detained for a short period before being banished from the Kingdom; in 1717, the Swedish ambassador to England was expelled for similar reasons.

Khobragade’s alleged offence was too minor to be recorded on that scale and yet she was arrested, handcuffed, and strip searched. She posed no threat to national security, and even if the United States refused to recognise her immunity, she could have been politely asked to meet with State and Justice Department officials and informed of the lawsuit against her. The US Marshals have stated that they were following standard procedures for any detainee – that is precisely the point, that foreign emissaries are not standard people. Even consular officers, beneath diplomatic officers in the new hierarchy, facilitate relations between the host and their home state and should be shown the same courtesy if not immunity by their hosts.

Declaring an envoy persona non grata is not a minor affair. It means that person runs the risk of being prosecuted if s/he returns to the host state at a later date after the expiry of immunity. Furthermore, a blacklisted diplomat may find it difficult to gain acceptance in other capitals. States are well within their rights to refuse the credentials of an envoy being stationed in their country – France refused the credentials of the Duke of Buckingham in the late 1620s, but more recently, Saudi Arabia refused to accept Sir Horace Phillips of the United Kingdom in 1968 and the United States was warned not to accept India’s Triloki Nath Kaul in 1973.

The charming and wooing of ambassadors that was part of the ancient repertoire seems to have disappeared in the modern process of debasing of a noble art into legal wrangling. The extension of unilateral privileges to foreign envoys by India’s Ministry of External Affairs cannot be seen as obsequiousness but based on the tradition of hospitum. With enough policy issues to argue over, the small courtesies extended to emissaries far from home to make their stay more comfortable may result in their pleasant disposition towards the host country; they are the receiving state’s messengers to their home countries almost as much as they are envoys of the latter to the former. These extra-legal privileges are not uniform and indicate the greater importance of some countries to India – the demands of realpolitik do not, apparently, bend to the tokenisms of our equality-obsessed era.

Lest anyone has forgotten, diplomacy is still a human enterprise and personal relationships remain very important. Richard Nixon’s first visit to India in 1953 set the tone for his exchanges with the South Asian country until the end of his career. The Khobragade case has left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Both sides will view each other suspiciously and though both may tolerate each other for strategic short-term reasons, a relationship over the longue durée gets weakened with every such incident. There is no doubt that there is some jingoistic chest-thumping over the arrest of Khobragade, but even the cooler heads in India’s Foreign Service have been affronted by this violation of the diplomat’s code. You simply do not touch a foreign emissary.


This post appeared on Daily News & Analysis on December 22, 2013.

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