Reuters, Washington :
The US ambassador to India has resigned following a row over the arrest of a junior Indian diplomat in New York that pushed relations between the world’s biggest democracies to their lowest ebb in more than a decade.
US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf denied on Monday that Nancy Powell’s resignation was related to ongoing tensions after the December arrest and subsequent strip search of the Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade.
But analysts said it was clear the position of Powell, a career diplomat who has held several postings in South Asia and became the ambassador to India in 2012, had become untenable as a result of the affair.
The United States sees India as a natural ally on a range of issues and a potential counterbalance to China in Asia. In 2010, President Barack Obama declared that the US-Indian relationship would be “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.”
Trade in goods was $63.7 billion last year, and US Vice President Joseph Biden last year called for that to grow to half a trillion dollars in five years.
But trade relations were deteriorating even before the diplomatic row and in India’s eyes, Powell’s tenure never recovered from Khobragade’s treatment. India took retaliatory measures against the US embassy, including removing the ambassador’s exemption from airport security searches.
Many Indian officials felt Powell had mishandled the case, which was related to the low wages that Khobragade paid a domestic worker. Both the Indian government and Narendra Modi, the opposition candidate who is favourite to become India’s next prime minister after elections that end in May, saw the arrest as US hypocrisy and arrogance.
The US ambassador to India has resigned following a row over the arrest of a junior Indian diplomat in New York that pushed relations between the world’s biggest democracies to their lowest ebb in more than a decade.
US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf denied on Monday that Nancy Powell’s resignation was related to ongoing tensions after the December arrest and subsequent strip search of the Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade.
But analysts said it was clear the position of Powell, a career diplomat who has held several postings in South Asia and became the ambassador to India in 2012, had become untenable as a result of the affair.
The United States sees India as a natural ally on a range of issues and a potential counterbalance to China in Asia. In 2010, President Barack Obama declared that the US-Indian relationship would be “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.”
Trade in goods was $63.7 billion last year, and US Vice President Joseph Biden last year called for that to grow to half a trillion dollars in five years.
But trade relations were deteriorating even before the diplomatic row and in India’s eyes, Powell’s tenure never recovered from Khobragade’s treatment. India took retaliatory measures against the US embassy, including removing the ambassador’s exemption from airport security searches.
Many Indian officials felt Powell had mishandled the case, which was related to the low wages that Khobragade paid a domestic worker. Both the Indian government and Narendra Modi, the opposition candidate who is favourite to become India’s next prime minister after elections that end in May, saw the arrest as US hypocrisy and arrogance.
