AMERICAN Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel has bid a churlish farewell to India as she relinquished charge of the South Asia Bureau. That I enjoy dubious and reluctant popularity with her is interesting. But that is not the provocation for this article. Let me, as she said in her recent interview to India Abroad News Service, pull rank on her and say that I would normally not take notice of an interview given by a middle-ranking official of the State Department. But her fulminations against the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Indian civil service deserve a response.