Relations between India and America have been temporarily mislaid in that variable space between letter of the law and spirit of the relationship. Diplomatic dignity has been hijacked by an egregious New York law officer, Preet Bharara, who is clearly so deeply in love with himself that he has metamorphosed into a first-rate hypocrite. But the real concern should be elsewhere: why did his superiors in Washington’s State Department permit Bharara to behave as he did?

When all pontificating is over, faults will be visible on all sides. Where there are human beings there are problems. Where there are problems, there can be solutions. That is why nations employ a corps of diplomats. Diplomats know that civilized answers can only be found through dialogue; so the first and abiding requirement of international behaviour is courtesy, from whence the phrase ‘diplomatic courtesy’. But instead of finding a calm way out of a pinprick problem, some worthies within the Barack Obama establishment decided that the time had come to “teach” India, and Indian officials, a “lesson”. They downgraded India from friend to “gotcha” nation.

This is the fate of the weak, for even rivals are treated with kid gloves, not least because there is fear of consequences, as Russia’s tough foreign minister Sergei Lavrov reminded everyone. Just before India’s acting consul general in New York, Devyani Khobragade , was humiliated, Bharara brought criminal charges against 49 Russian diplomats for medical insurance fraud. Eleven of them are serving in New York. Not one of them has seen a handcuff. Washington knows that Comrade-President Putin has lots of handcuffs in the cupboards of the Kremlin. Russians were accorded diplomatic immunity. Devyani was denied such consideration on the sort of specious interpretation that would not travel very far if host nations applied them to American diplomats in their capitals. Neither did it occur to any wise egg in Washington that such behaviour with a woman is transgression of a more important human code than breach of any protocol signed in Geneva.

How could it, when the action was a conscious set-up ? The maid in question, Sangita Richard, in an astonishing departure from norm, was given virtual political asylum in America. Her husband and child got visas to join her without any of the sweat that Indians associate with this process. Action against Devyani was initiated only when they reached New York. They will not return. Who gave them life-long visas in a hurry? Will we get any answers? Not likely. Is it accidental that two Americans of Indian origin, Bharara and Nisha Desai-Biswal , assistant secretary of state, are the official face of this sting? If this was deliberate, the master planners must be pretty dim. Such thin prophylactic was never going to be sufficient protection against Indian outrage.

But the challenge now is surely to rescue the Indo-US relationship, so carefully nurtured by George Bush and Dr Manmohan Singh, from this sudden bonfire. The Singh-Bush spirit has been wandering in nowhere space, desperate for an anchor, ever since Obama decided he could fob off India’s Prime Minister with dinner, a few conciliatory phrases squeezed out like water from rock, and a public relations wiggle or two. Is it psychological? Is Obama indifferent to India precisely because his predecessor Bush was so different?

Or has Obama concluded that India is dispensable : India is unable or unwilling to play any strategic role in American withdrawal from Afghanistan [although the potential is huge]; it has become a waffle state under a weak government, eager to maximise gains such as the nuclear deal but reluctant to deliver on its side of the bargain [witness A K Antony’s imperious rejection of American fighter aircraft]; its economy has lost promise and cannot be a meaningful trading partner or investment base. Obama’s Asian triangle of interest has been China, Afghanistan and Iran. India is a hollow on the periphery. If that is the message coming from the White House, it is almost inevitable that officials down the line get encouraged to flex false muscle.

John Kerry’s conciliatory telephone call to Delhi was recognition of American excess. But a nadir can also be the starting point for renewal. One year later, Obama will be loitering in the waiting room of the future. In five months, the Manmohan Singh era, already unravelling, will be over. Obama surely understands that the architecture of a stable and economically buoyant Asia is incomplete without a pillar called India. And Delhi must know that all relations thrive best on a two-way street. The critical months of restructuring will be between July and October of 2014, but for that to happen work on foundation stones of a fresh start must be laid in January and February.

In the meantime, the letter of American law will have to adjust to a revived bilateral spirit.