The Super-Sensitive Indian: Protests as Ambassador Meera Shankar Is Patted Down at US Airport

The Ministry of External Affairs will shoot a very strong mail to the US State Department to protest the manner in which Indian ambassador to the US Meera Shankar was pulled out of an airport security line and patted down by an American security agent.

This, despite the Americans being told of her status and the fact that she enjoys complete diplomatic immunity.

The incident took place on December 4 at Jackson-Evers International Airport in Mississippi. Shankar, 60, was returning to Washington after addressing a programme at Mississippi State University. She did not set off the metal detectors, but she was pulled from the security line and subjected to a pat-down by a female TSA agent — the only person among at least 30 passengers to be singled out, according to witness accounts quoted by the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. She was reportedly told she had been selected for additional screening because of her dress: a sari.

Reacting to the incident, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said on Thursday afternoon that Shankar's body-search was "unacceptable to India." "Let me be very frank that this is unacceptable to India," Krishna said. "We are going to take it up with the government of the United States so that such unpleasant incidents do not recur." He added pointedly that this was the second time in three months the ambassador had been singled out — she was patted down in Chicago in September as well.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao called it poor public diplomacy, and the episode drew a public apology from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The contrast between the "special relationship" rhetoric and the treatment of a sitting ambassador in a sari made this one of the more embarrassing diplomatic incidents of the year.