Bharat Bhushan - Pegasus impact: Loss to Indian Republic and government is much greater
Even if it was a legitimate intelligence gathering operation, the Pegasus expose has effectively derailed it. By now potential targets would have taken appropriate preventive measures. So millions of dollars spent have been effectively flushed down the drain. However, the loss to the Indian Republic and the present government is much greater.
Congress leader Rahul
Gandhi has described the government’s use of Pegasus
spyware--designated as a “weapon” by Israel--against its citizens and
democratic institutions as “treason”. With the State itself seemingly intent on
destroying its own institutions, perhaps a better term to describe India today
would be a “rogue democracy”--a term used by political scientists for democracies
that attack the basic institutions meant to strengthen them.
If the alleged use of the spyware is even partly true--as it
prima facie seems to be--then the State itself has acted in an extra-judicial
manner. Such actions can disable the essential institutions of democracy which
help maintain political equilibrium. The targets of cyber surveillance so far
named, suggest that elected leaders have tried to impair the judiciary,
sabotaged independent Constitutional bodies like the Election Commission,
undermined the Opposition and eroded media freedom to consolidate power.
Just the fear of intrusive surveillance can have disastrous
consequences for India’s democratic functioning. Those appointed to India’s
constitutionally independent institutions and statutory bodies could become
apprehensive of open communication within as well as with other institutions of
the State, after revelations that Pegasus had infiltrated the mobile phones of
a Supreme Court employee and a serving Election Commissioner, the Director and
senior officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Communication between the ruling party and the Opposition
will be irreparably affected too. After the names of Rahul Gandhi, Trinamul
Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee, G Parmeshwara (former Deputy Chief Minister
of Janata Dal-Secular in Karnataka), the personal secretaries of then Chief
Minister H D Kumaraswamy and Siddharamaiah and even the personal security guard
of former prime minister H D Devegowda, were found on a potential surveillance
list, henceforth all Opposition leaders would presume that they are under
watch. Normal political interaction inside and outside parliament between
the government and the Opposition political parties, already virtually
non-existent in the Modi regime, will now be further diminished. Even on
non-partisan issues the Modi government may find it increasingly difficult to
solicit their cooperation. Every action of the government would be viewed with
suspicion and in the service of protecting the current government leadership.
The biggest setback probably will be to the ruling BJP
itself with party men doubting whether their leaders trust them. The list of
those on the snooping list would emphasise this paranoia as it contains the
names of Vasundhara Raje’s personal secretary; a once powerful aide of Union
Cabinet Minister Smriti Irani; the wife, secretary, aides, cook and gardener of
Prahlad Singh Patel who is himself a Union minister; former IAS officer and now
Cabinet minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and even former Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader
Pravin Togadia.
Down the line the message will be understood that the
party’s top leadership is wary of its own ministers and regional leaders,
especially those critical of it. This could in effect reduce the party to a
two-man band, with everyone else relegated to the status of suspicious,
untrustworthy, marginal accompanists. With the party devouring its own,
Hindutva ideologues would be deeply concerned by the damage the party’s current
national leadership will have wreaked on the political instrument they had so
carefully nurtured and fashioned.
The government’s total denial of any involvement in the
affair is telling. To admit that it had purchased Pegasus spyware and used it
against political rivals would lead to even more disturbing questions. The
government would have to admit that it had used the spyware to bring down an
Opposition-led government in Karnataka, to infiltrate the phones of Rahul
Gandhi and other Opposition figures and even those of its own leaders
and ministers. Could it really justify all this in the name of national
security?
The Modi government’s assassination narrative around the
Bhima-Koregaon accused and civil society activists already leaks like a sieve.
More so after proof of the damning documents having been secretly implanted on
the computers of the accused, has come to light. After such bungling there will
be fewer takers each time the government cites national security or a ‘threat’
to a leader’s life to corner its opponents and critics.
If the government’s denial of involvement has any substance,
it should have instantly taken judicial action against those accusing it of
clandestine snooping. By now it should have ordered an inquiry to ascertain who
undertook an operation costing millions of dollars. Calling the entire
controversy “fake news” is unlikely to wash with anyone.
The overwhelming electoral mandate that the BJP received in
2014 and in 2019 should have made its leadership self-confident and
accommodative. Instead, the accusations arising from Pegasus suggest that it
has become increasingly paranoid. Executive power appears to have gone rogue in
an attempt to stay in control.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s acceptability among other
world leaders, already dwindling, will now plunge further as his high moral
stance of leading the world’s largest democracy will be increasingly revealed
as a fig-leaf. During this regime, there has been a slide in International
references to the Indian polity as being “partially free democracy” (Freedom
House, USA), an “electoral autocracy” (V-Dem Institute of Sweden) and a “flawed
democracy” (Economic Intelligence Unit of The Economist).
Increasingly the world is not inclined to leave alone
leaders who abuse the rights of their citizens. Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s
bluster about “disruptors and obstructers” will have little purchase as
international opinion shifts towards bolstering alternative centres
of power. The Modi government will then be left only with the thin defence of
“outside interference in India’s sovereignty”. Used by autocracies like China,
this argument cuts no ice. Already after its missteps in Jammu and Kashmir, US
pressure has compelled the Indian government to take corrective measures.
https://www.business-standard.
Samar
Halarnkar: The lights begin to wink out in India’s democracy
The
Judiciary is the Defence of the Innocent. Or so we thought...
WANTED:
Immediate Justice in the Bhima-Koregaon Conspiracy. By Cedric Prakash
