The recent arrest of an Indian couple in Norway for alleged abuse of their child has once again raked up many anxieties about parenting, cultural specificity, racism and law. Unlike the earlier instance of the Bhattacharyas whose children were taken away by Norwegian child services because they hand-fed them and slept in the same bed, which Indians see as normal gestures of affection, the second case does throw up someu00a0uncomfortable issues.

Illustration/Amit Bandre