Last week, on Thursday and Friday, a federal judge handed down sentences to the Sabhnanis, the couple in Long Island who were charged with enslaving and torturing their Indonesian maids (Previous SM coverage: 1, 2, 3). 
- Varsha Sabhnani, identified as the person responsible for torturing the maids, received 11 years in prison.
- Her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for allowing the crimes to take place and benefitting from them.
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p>The sensational details of this case caught the attention of the mainstream press, as did the resemblance of Varsha Sabhnani to a certain Disney villain. I can imagine this made other Indian families in Long Island, especially the ones who knew the Sabhnanis, a bit unconfortable.
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p>What I can’t understand is why their friend, Jotwani, thought that this would be a defense:
“This case is very frightening for Indian families here,” said Bharat Jotwani, a wealthy friend of the Sabhnanis’ who lives nearby. “We are all educated, nice people. We came here to make it…”“There is no way on earth any Indian family in the United States could do what they were accused of,” he said. “The [Indian] people I know here all feel this way. Anybody from India who has come here comes from a very good family…” [Link]
WTF? The Sabhnani’s couldn’t possibly be guilty because … they’re educated and nice people from good families? No Indian could possibly commit a crime? I know Jotwani’s speaking uncle-speak here, but I honestly can’t figure out what this would translate to in ABCD English. They couldn’t be criminals because they’re wealthy? Sometimes you just gotta shake your head and wonder …
Manju – you are making me LOL!
AK:
The magic of AI is well known to airport crews. The rodents which get on board AI in India can be trapped by using masala vada as bait. But the ones that board AI outside India respond only to Swiss cheese and chocolate.
Cmon now…he/she is not that funny.
Off-topic but it seems Sindhi, Gujew and Hindu Punjabi families are more open-minded about gays than other Indian groups. The only Indian gay/bisexual/lesbians, I met, are from the Sindhi, Hindu Punjabi and Gujew community.
Any gay/bisexual/lesbians from these three communities can comment on this?
Right on, Razib!!
An MD with a little bit of “get up and go” can easily do better than 200K!! I mean, really, some physicians really are upper middle class! 😉
50 · Tera Baap said
first i’m a stupid ABCD pup (i’m still laughing at that word) , then a redneck, and now a wannabe white. i guess everyone who feels those slavers should be punished is automatically a self hating redneck wannabe, eh Uncleji?
btw, i still want to know which anti Indian laws you had to overcome in order to make it in this country.
No.. but pricks and xenophobes who say “Go home..” to other immigrants most certainly are rednecks, if they are brown, they are self hating wannabe whites.
Why don’t you ask your dad.. ? And what will you do even I tell my experiences to you ?
Regarding comment #3 about Bengalis, a Malika Ghosh Garrett has been charged in Atlanta with mistreating a nanny she illegally brought from India. There is also a case of a couple (not sure where in the subcontinent they are from) allegedly mistreating a Latina maid in the Silicon Valley. What is going on??
Yellow card. Language directed at another commenter. Argue the position, not the person please.
You tolerate folks asking others to “Go Home..”, and when someone calls them out as Xenophobes/Racists when they do that, you say “Yellow Card”..
May be you should have invited the kids who yelled “go home..” at you into your home and argued your position with them instead of chasing them around with a baseball bat..
I didn’t like that first part either, but I don’t like to meddle directly. Once we get into pricks and xenophobes and direct name calling I know it’s going to go downhill fast so I stepped in and blew the whistle.
Please, both of you. Argue the position not the person.
Classic!
LOL.
ennis, what if she had gone scot free as opposed to getting convicted ? would you then be indignant as well ? if yes, you’ve already made up your mind she’s guilty, why bother with arguing position vs person, might as well just argue & get it done with.
ennis – this is a context confusion. I can understand what might have prompted the defence. Remember that the Sabhnanis and the Jotwanis come from a collectivist society with high power difference. Poor choice of words. the person was found guilty, end of story. Jotwani’s explanation is a classic DBD excuse – one that is rarely understood by ABDs. . And I am NOT defending anyone here. Do the crime, do the time is a hard concept to grasp for many DBDs. The appropriate response to Jotwani is “Sabhanani and his spouse have brought shame and disgrace to our community. They need to excommunicated. How can you defend them”. And to the commenters who talked about one set of laws for the aam junta and another for the powerful – certainly more true in India than in the West. Sabhananis are not aam junta by desi standards and hence need to be held to a higher standard.
60 · Tera Baap said
Wrong. I didn’t tell you to back to India because of your ethnicity (which would be hypocritical to say the least), but rather due to your repeated claims of how America is such an anti Indian country and also your condescension towards ABDs. Keep up the Uncle Tom insinuations, it’s really helping your argument.
i do agree with the earlier posters who said that this is a common reaction from just about all families, friends, and neighbors of criminals, regardless of race or class, i.e. “He was such a good kid , he never could have done anything like that!” etc. What irked me about your posts were your low personal attacks against others and your endless rants about how the first generation sacrificed so much in the face of vicious bigotry and we stupid ABDs don’t know an iota about it.
53 · TheBrownChamp said
Oh, Puh-leeze Brown Champ…you’re just jealous of my way with the ladies.
Regardless of your reasons, its a xenophobic thing to say. You can squirm left and right but it is what you said.. An immigrant asking another to “Go Home..” deserves the epithet that you think I was insinuating.
Rest of the garbage you spout is not even worth responding to.
An immigrant asking another to “Go Home..” deserves the epithet that you think I was insinuating.
your interlocutor identified themselves as “american born.” so they’re not an immigrant.
razib, I essentially agree with you that class dictates the power structure but often browns( and other groups) make a distinction (incorrectly) that class and race are tied, hence you have stereotypes that in the real world have implications. But we’ve got into another area and strayed from the topic of this thread.
I’m still waiting for someone to show how Uncleji’s past caused him to come to the defense of criminal behavior and torture or the defendants maids. His statements as I have said before come from a sense of entitlement of his group.
i don’t think anyone who knows how domestic servants are abused in india, or in any of the southasian, southeast asian and middleastern countries would be surprised by these atrocities. she was just a little bit more monsterish. i think the feeling of having the power of life or deportation over these people must be heady.
that class and race are tied, hence you have stereotypes that in the real world have implications
race and class are tied. white liberals routinely conflate race and class because minorities, as a whole, are poorer than and less wealthy than whites. i recall in ’96 a white liberal friend of mine stated that welfare reform was racist. he seemed a big chagrined when i pointed out that though a larger proportion of non-whites are on welfare, at any given time most people on welfare are white.
in any case, a subset of asian american groups are very affluent and were raised in nice suburbs and went to nice schools. yes, they were subject to racism and discrimination that alex johnson IV would never be, but they also have some advantages over cletus smith. the world is complex, but alas discourse is not….
[deleted for vulgarity, try again]
KXB:
Statement 1: The “good family” defense is used by everyone, not just Indians. My parents on LI have no Sindhis in their circle, so they can probably get an out by saying, “At least it was not a Bengali family.
Statement 2: FYI – none of these crimes were committed by confused American-born and raised Indians
==== Hypocritical much?
TheBrownChamp: “If you encounter a snake or a Sindhi, you kill the Sindhi first”. I heard this from a Marathi friend. “If you are in the jungle and see a poisonous snake and an Indian, kill the Indian first” Malaysian and Indonesian saying.
People are so cute sometimes…
====================
Johnny Valker: can you tell us what sort of codified prejudices Mr. Jotwani fought against? did he march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge? did he stage a sit in at diners to demand that hindoos be served too? or is his civil rights work done mainly via deeming other Indians innocent based on their ethnicity and annual income?
Have you ever heard of the notion of the “lace curtain Irish.” In the United States most Ethnic/National groups have had some wealthy or educated people immigrate along with the of lower echelons of poorer/less educated swathes. Now you don’t have to have a thorough perusal of history to realize that these two groups were treated differently. There are many many many Indians who come to this country, who are treated with a greater amount of Prejudice than most of the Doctors/Engineers (and their kids) who moved here.
Manju: Very true. One time, I went to a bar and they didn’t serve Johnny Walker Black. But they had White Russians. I slapped the Indonesian next to me and left.
Pithy….very pithy…patronizing too, but that comes with the territory and hard work of trying to educating the immigrants to the American way of life and sense of humor I guess.
razib: your interlocutor identified themselves as “american born.” so they’re not an immigrant.
Would the appropriate response then be “after you”?
Not that I’m trying to pull a shake n’ bake with the puppy-hating gentleman above against the ABDs but I think “tera baap” for all his virulence was trying to make the point that a certain amount of cultural understanding is lacking among the Americans whose parents are of Indian origin (is that approximate enough?) for the Immigrants who are of Indian origin. And I believe (again this is just me reading through the many insults) that he finds this deficiency baffling because these Americans should have a great Cultural IQ due to their lifelong exposure to their parents.
Erratum: greater Cultural IQ
I am a DBD and back in the 90s, I constantly heard this (“We are all educated, nice people”) and its variations “Our family is a nice one” or “Our family is a respectable one” or “Such a thing has never happened before in our family”, etc….I was aghast, because guess what brought out such comments – I was going through a divorce! I don’t think I’ll ever quite understand what “nice” means when an Indian utters it.
I had a boss who was from one the the “right” families in rye/greenwich. HE used to complain that his parents used to say about someone that at least we knew they came from a “good family”. He used to respond. “No. we dont know if they come from a good family….we know they are from a rich family. they can be complete degenerates with money…” That leads me to believe its not something only people of indian descent say.
“i don’t think anyone who knows how domestic servants are abused in india, or in any of the southasian, southeast asian and middleastern countries would be surprised by these atrocities”
WHAT????I spent the first 30 years of my life in Pune,India and I am shocked to hear of the atrocities. Yes we had all kinds of maids in India, but no I never heard of anyone treating their maids in such a disgusting manner. One of our maids, who has been with us for almost 2 decades, has the same place in our house as our grandma. I do not know of any household that treated their maids the way the sabhnani lady treated them.
And now when I go back to India on my annual visits and see my cousins who have 3-4 different maids in their house, I am pleasantly surprised! My cousin speaks to her maid more lovingly than she would speak to her hubby. The maid goes on vacations without telling my cousin, and there is no way my cousin can shout at her when she comes back……infact my sis made her a cup of tea and listened to her vacation stories! My friends maid’s kids all get to go to good schools, camps all courtesy of my friend. One shout and the maid is gone and everyone and I mean everyone in India knows how difficult it is to get a good maid.
BTW, totally agree with tera baap…….no point analyzing jotwani uncles comment. I think they are totally taken out of context i.e we don’t know what question the reporter asked him. Also he just found out his best friend is going to jail….he is emotional and shocked. Leave him alone.
Peace.
I hear this so often from relatives all the time – my relatives make it seem like this is their biggest problem in life. If only we were all so lucky…But jaisingh, I must say that you seem to know a good amount of people who treat their domestic employees with respect. However, I have plenty of relatives who do not, so I’m not sure which is the norm. It seems like it’s usually somewhere in the middle – no violence, but simultaneously no great affection either.
He he. Well, I happen to hate Swiss cheese and love masala vadai, so I would be forced to observe that the desi ones have better taste 😉
I like these assumptions of yours – keep it up!
But it does. Perhaps it does not reveal the whole picture, but like I said, you don’t say something like that without actually believing it. Even if I let go of my objection to the all-encompassing, ‘desis can’t do any wrong’ statement and chalked it up to being in the spotlight, he made a clear distinction between certain groups of desis – even if he wasn’t thinking, what comes out in those times are the subconscious thoughts.
Of course commenters understand what that generation has gone through – but as many have pointed out, being the subject of xenophobia, racism, and whatever other prejudice does not give one the right to wield such prejudice on other people – if anything, having gone through any sort of prejudice should make this set of desis we are discussing less inclined to espouse prejudice of any nature. I don’t understand how denying that all desis in the US are capable of doing such crimes makes things better – it’s a disservice to the community, and it only allows such terrible acts to continue. And just because uncles like Jotwani have gone through rough times (do we even know this for sure about him?) doesn’t mean that they are perfect – I see many of these comments as merely a criticism of one aspect of Mr. Jotwani. I think we can all agree that, knowing nothing else about this man, it is possible that he – and others akin to him – are capable of being imperfect, context/spotlight or not.
23 · Kev said
Read a few more of the comments and seriously the ABD commentors need to know that a good maid in india is worshipped like a goddess. One is considered extremely lucky if he/she has a maid who can do the work with minimal supervision and is also trustworthy at the same time. If you find one like that, you have to treat them nothing short of a family member, meet all their demands and literally go out of your way to please them. If not you run the risk of loosing them to your neighbor and everyone in urban India knows that is the worst thing to happen in your very busy lifestyle. And a lot of money does not get you a good maid in INdia, you really have to love and nurture them! One of my aunts gave me this piece of advice for a good successful marraige: Get a good maid, love her like family member and hang on to her forever.
Cry me a river. God forbid that – gasp – you have to work, meet social commitments and do your own housework! People do it in so many countries, and yes, even in India – it’s only those who can afford such luxuries that get so used to them and forget that they are a luxury, and not a necessity. My point was – no, there really are worse things that could happen to you.
I’ve seen that, but honestly it was more in the old days, when people were attached to families for good. I’ve also seen the marketization of domestic service help conditions for servants, they can walk away when they want.
Sadly, however, I’ve seen more bad treatment than good (although more indifferent treatment than either).
In any case, the conditions in LI were different. The women couldn’t leave so there was no need to treat them well.
For ppl who can afford luxuries either in India or the US, the luxury becomes a necessity. Car= luxury in India but necessity in america; Maid= necessity in India but luxury in america
as someone who has lived without both a car and a maid for the last 15 years or so, i can definitively say that i consider neither to be a necessity. and not everyone in america has a car. there are very few necessities in life – food, housing, clothing, a modicum of money to afford all these – but everything else is just extra.
Please feast on the expense of this Aunty too.. Family(Aunty) accused of modern slavery in Atlanta
Ennis, totally disagree. INfact in the old days, the maid was not that much of a necessity…..but today with the nuclear family system, one has to depend a lot on the maid and hence treat them extra nice and keep them happy.
Yes, they can walk away whenever they want and unfortunately that was not the case in LI
AK, you can pretty much live in ANY city in India and do without a car. A rickshaw, taxi, bus is just a yell away. I have lived in the burbs in philly for 5 years and now in Raleigh and it is impossible to live without a car in any of these places. And that is for the majority of US except for NY may be.
I’ve had a crawling in my heart and head since this story broke. My inlaws live not too far from the Sabnanis and for all intents and purposes the entire desi community of that generation is quite connected. I know quite a few people that know them. For the most part the story made me squirm because like the Sabnani’s almost all the desi families I know from LI in that area have maids/cooks including my inlaws and this was just one of those unbelievable stories that took everyone by shock. People who have known the Sabnani’s personally had no idea this was going on and I believe the few I know. That it happened so systematically is just incredibly tragic. I guess I have failed to understand till now having watched this closely why these women didn’t leave a long time ago.
The thing is that I’ve seen maids treated differently in a lot of these households during different times. Families where there are younger kids where the maids are primary caregivers to them tend to have a emotional bond with their maids. Families who don’t have younger people in the home, and generally have grandparents in the home who have a certain way of dealing with maids in India tend to be rather clinical in how they treat their maids.
The whole thing makes me squirm because of how the Sabnani’s were touted as these rich rotten people. The vast majority of Mutton Town, Syosset, Dix Hills, Woodbury, West Hills desi community that is very very affluent worked their asses off to get their money. None of those families come from money so it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that the community has gotten shyt about their homes and wealth because of the Sabananis. Nothing was handed to them for free. It’s just shitty that wealth was viewed as a bad thing because there were maids involved.
as someone who has lived without both a car and a maid for the last 15 years or so, i can definitively say that i consider neither to be a necessity. and not everyone in america has a car.
ak, if you live in within city limits of a thorough metro system (say New York, DC even, maybe even Beantown), a car is not a necessity, in fact it’s usually a burden. If you live w/out a car my guess is you live in one of these areas.
Jaisingh @ 80:
You are either as good a writer as Prosper Merimee* or you are confusing how families back in India (intend to) treat supple, young, demure bahus and/or a good milking cow (well, except for the part about losing to the neighbour).
Either way, your memsahib characters do not get my sympathy. Sorry.
*Prosper Merimee…combines witty and accurate social observation with acute psychological insight. The plot is simple, if not banal; but in his account[s]…[all] is achieved with great economy–a passing comment, a suggestive detail, a gesture, a word–as well as by most careful construction; and we are left with an indelible impression of the complexities and ironies of love [for maid] in the modern world.
— Douglas Parmee, 1964
84 · ak said
83 · jaisingh said
Sometimes You Need Stupid, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” The Movie
Honey(my wife, who loves Steve Martin, like most Indian women), You would enjoy this moovie
food, housing, clothing, a modicum of money to afford all these – but everything else is just extra.
for 50% of the population, jewelry is added to the list.
Ohh Malathi, thanks for calling me a memsahib! JK:) Even today’s Indian maids would downright refuse to call anyone that. They stick to didi instead. Neway, I was not trying to behave like anyone or gain sympathy???(why would I do that???). Just giving you the real picture. I was in Pune last march hunting for a house and I liked this small community on Pune-nagar road which is almost an hour away from the city, kind of sits in the middle of nowhere, and I asked a neighbor who moved in a couple of months ago (pretty new community)how he likes living there and he said it is very peaceful, no noise, pollution but the biggest drawback is maids refuse to come here because it is not very accessible unless you have a 2 or 4 wheeler.
last I heard, the community is selling very slow……….
Jaisingh,
I am not calling you a memsahib. If I were you, I would consider it a compliment to be compared with Prosper Merimee and then, say no more.
Also, Jaisingh,
Please refrain from generalizing the situation for maids in India based on your experience in Pune. As a DBD who has had some chances to observe the marketability and working conditions of maids in Banglore, Delhi and Chennai (and other rural and urban places in Tamil Nadu), I am left with the impression that things are not even across the nation.
73 · RahulD said
“Lace curtain Irish”, and their Italian counterparts the “Wonder Bread WOPs” are slurs used by the working class members of the respective community to indicate that the upper classes are whitewashed. Less affluent Indian immigrants may have a harder time financially in this country, but I fail to see how discrimination would differ. To racists, an Indian doctor is just as much a “dothead” as the Indian gas pumper. Remember that the first victim of the “Dotbusters” in NJ was a doctor.
Furthermore, my original question still has not been answered: What laws did our parents have to change in order to succeed here?
I’ve never heard “lace curtain Irish” being a slur, specially it being used in books and in my neighborhood which is an Irish one…calling someone Irish and calling someone a wop is not the same thing, I’m pretty sure. And no it has nothing to do with their communities being “whitewashed” (what a lovely term by the way), but with the lack of connection…not unlike the one the ABD’s have with the DBD’s in many instances, except it seems more pronounced among Indians.
I was trying to play devil’s advocate, but now that you apparently had asked a question – I’ll try to answer it while trying to keep the same role.
There don’t need to be Government authorized laws for discrimination to exist!. Again, I certainly think that Indians haven’t had to face as much racism as Blacks in the United States but that does not mean that people like Mr. Jothwani haven’t faced enough to affect their worldview significantly!
I’m not so sure that the comments made by Mr. Jotwani are particularly unique to the desi community. When the media first started focusing on child sexual predators (I’m thinking late 80’s to mid 90’s) the common refrain was shock and disbelief whenever the accused turned out to be a “family man”(code for suburban and middle class or higher). The dissonance between the nature of the crime and the public face presented by the accused can stretch peoples’ credulity beyond the snapping point so that they believe the authorities must have gotten it wrong or the victim is a liar. People have become more exposed and inured to the idea that predation can be committed as easily by the Scout leader accountant who throws an annual block party as by the wino hanging out in an alley near the school, so you hear less of it these days. However, every so often, the “good family (including educated)” defence will pop up for a particularly shocking crimes (especially when a prep school student/graduate is involved).
I think the key element is whether or not one believes in the integrity of the justice system. If you have enough distrust of the system, then the dissonance between the crime and the accused/convicted will lead you to believe that the system has made a mistake (whether the mistake is Duke or O.J.). If you believe that the system has functioned properly then your reaction to the conviction of someone you identify with will more likely veer towards shock and sorrow rather than shock and disbelief. Personal factors, including previous experiences of racial injustice by the authorities, lying witnesses or prejudice, can certainly colour one’s belief in the capabilities of the system. Given the added stress of knowing that the entire group may very well be tainted by the actions of a few, I’m not as surprised by the comments of Mr. Jotwani.
Jai Singh et al: I’ve seen both the worship and poor treatment of maids in India, but more worship in the last five years or so. Again, it depends on the employer and circumstances. Asian maids in Arab nations have it the worst, though, as a lot of you regular SM readers are aware.
Why should I refrain from putting my thoughts out there, malathi? My observations are based on situations in Pune and Mumbai. It would be naive to assume that the situation is the same all over India. Its like a white person looking at rural pictures of india, and assuming that the whole of India is like that:)