The French Correction

Her name, she said, was Lalita Oraon, and she was an orphan from Ranchi in Bihar. Her employer, Amrit Lugun, was first secretary at the Indian embassy in Paris. She worked every day from six in the morning to midnight, and was paid 50 dollars a month. She was often slapped and kicked around by her employers, and was made to sleep on the floor. Unable to put up with the pressure, she had run away with the intention of killing herself. According to her diplomatic passport, she was 19-and-a-half years old. But when a subsequent examination put her age at no more than 17, she was handed over to an NGO, Comite Contre L’eslavage Moderne, or the Committee Against Modern Day Slavery (ccem), which in turn sent her to a convent, St Joseph’s of Cluny. A day later, Lalita fell off a six-metre wall while trying to escape from the convent, fracturing an ankle and her spine. Some, of course, see it as an attempt to commit suicide because Lalita, ever since she had run away from her employers, was reportedly suicidal. In a medical examination that followed, it was discovered that she had serious injuries to her genitals. French urologist Bernard Debre, who operated on these injuries, later said the wounds "could not have been accidental or self-inflicted." In fact, he said, "I had never seen anything like this in my whole life. She was suffering from blood-poisoning from wounds apparently caused by an old blade." Lalita reportedly told the police that "she had been touched and she had been wounded in the genitals while drowsing at her employer’s home, but she did not accuse anyone".

The ccem took the case to the public and the French media finally sat up and began to take notice. Says Philip Turle, a journalist with Radio France Internationale: "Most Parisians are shocked because the average person here has no maid and with heavy unemployment in the country they are angry that someone could stoop so low to treat their employee in such a nasty manner." Though it did not make front-page news, reports incriminating Lugun in either trying to remove or surgically close the maid’s vagina triggered a vehement denial from the Indian embassy. The embassy also accused the ccem and the French authorities of ill-treating the maid. Lalita Oraon "seems to have been seriously maltreated by the Committee," the embassy said, and it "requested the French government to apprise it of the circumstances in which Ms Oraon sustained injuries after she was taken into custody by the French authorities and handed over to the Committee. " It also dismissed the allegations of "slavery," saying the girl’s statement that she was made to work from 6 am to midnight were "false".

Demanding that the girl be returned to the embassy for repatriation, it registered its "strong objection" to the "reprehensible innuendos made in leading French newspapers and TV with regard to sexual injuries she has reportedly suffered." It asked the "French media to cease its campaign of defamation." Veiled aspersions were also cast on Dr Debre, a reputed urologist, physician of former French president Francois Mitterrand and son of former prime minister Michele Debre.

However, the French authorities were galled by the Indian embassy’s insinuation that Dr Debre had colluded with the foreign office to cover up an alleged assault on the girl while she was in custody.

The French response was terse: "In this particular case the allegations against the authorities are untimely. We are following this affair closely. On being informed we immediately asked the Indian embassy for an explanation."

Describing the Indian embassy’s accusation as "completely absurd, inhuman and grotesque," ccem president Dominique Torres said "we are definitely going to sue them for defamation." The ccem has reportedly hired two lawyers to take up their case, and are hoping that it will set a new legal precedent. The Paris prosecutor’s office, meanwhile, appointed a two-member team, including a gynaecologist and a forensic specialist, to determine the precise nature of the maid’s wounds and try to put a date to them. The team was expected to deliver its report on Thursday, but postponed it till Monday to "carry out more inquiries."

Curiously, another similar case involving Emanuel Barua, an Indian diplomat, was also reported by ccem. Barua was accused of ill-treating his maid during his posting in Geneva, Switzerland, a year ago. To save face he was transferred to Birmingham. This coincidence is being used by the Indian embassy to drive home their point about the dubious designs of the committee.

A French police official working on the case, meanwhile, had a pertinent question for the Indians: "Why? At a time when France and India are moving towards better ties, why would we fabricate such a gruesome event?" Incidents like these have occurred in Paris before.

The Indians, who are aggressively defensive about the whole affair, have their own version. According to it, Lalita came to Paris on an official passport in January to work as a domestic help at Lugun’s house. Due to her constant misbehaviour with the diplomat’s two young children, the family decided to send her back to India in September. On learning this, she ran away from the house and was picked up by French police while wandering near the Eiffel tower. Despite knowing her identity, the French police did not release the girl to her employer, said Indian officials in Paris. In fact, the French police "arbitrarily impounded Lalita’s official passport" from her employer and refused to return it in violation of all international conventions. But they confirmed that the girl was in a healthy condition and said she would be taken to the airport on September 7 to be repatriated back to India. But instead, she was handed over to ccem, which housed her in a monastery from where she tried to escape and in the process got seriously injured.

Since then, the Indian embassy was kept in the dark about Lalita’s whereabouts, while the French foreign office, "in clear violation of all diplomatic norms," refused to respond to official letters and repeated phone calls. "The embassy registers its protest against this denial of access," alleging that no "independent investigator or Indian journalist was allowed to meet her." The French police, by preventing Indian officials from meeting Lalita, "wittingly or unwittingly, have abetted the campaign of disinformation and defamation."

Late on Thursday, additional secretary (administration) Pravin Goel flew into Paris to conduct an on-the-spot inquiry into the incident. In a statement released just before his departure from Delhi, the ministry of external affairs said the "government is investigating the matter to ascertain all the facts. We are in touch with the French government through the Indian embassy in Paris and we are cooperating closely with them to ascertain the facts." Replying to a question he clarified that there were no orders for Lugun’s removal or transfer.

French journalists, both here and in France, are, however, sceptical of the allegations that Lalita was ill-treated in French custody. Says one of them: "India has lost its credibility by 100 per cent and seems to be very bad at the art of communication—to blame the ministry and Dr Debre is just crazy....It’s a primitive sort of reaction and it’s a strange sort of nationalism at work."

How will this brouhaha over a runaway maid affect bilateral ties? Not much, says Bruno Philippe, an India expert from the Paris office at Le Monde. "I just had lunch with Karan Singh who is the head of the Indo-French Forum and really things between the two countries are very good at this time."