Top NY prosecutor confronts criticism from India

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — After years of silence on the issue, India-born U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has begun to open up about the cultural scorn he has faced over his high-profile prosecutions of South Asian defendants, particularly that of an Indian diplomat that led to one commentator in India to call him an "Uncle Tom."

In a recent speech at Harvard Law School, he noted the criticisms and countered them with unusual candor. Citing one commentator in India who questioned if he took up the diplomat case "to serve his white masters," Bharara quipped about who those white masters might be.

"Presumably, Eric Holder and Barack Obama," he said.

But the prosecutor also conceded that the uninvited scrutiny has been painful. It reached a fever pitch after the December arrest of a mid-level Indian diplomat on charges she underpaid a domestic worker. Much of the furor in the case against Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, focused on the fact that she had been strip-searched, which was viewed in India as degrading and unnecessary. Soon afterward, she was permitted to return to India, though charges remain.

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