Pegasus: A verdict for democracy

The Supreme Court’s decision to set up a committee to probe the Pegasus affair is welcome. It is what I called for from the very start when the scandal erupted, even though I head the parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology. For two years now my Committee has been conducting discussions on “Citizens’ data privacy and security” and “cyber security”, topics that also featured in its agenda under the previous Chairman, BJP’s Anurag Thakur. The Pegasus issue therefore clearly falls under the purview of the IT Committee and within these subjects on its agenda. So it surprised many that from the outset, rather than support calls for an investigation led by the IT Committee or by a Joint Parliamentary Committee, I declared that a Supreme Court-monitored investigation would the only way forward. 

But the reason for my demand then, and my applause now, is not hard to seek. It is no secret that the Committee’s meeting on its established agenda was disrupted by BJP members who did not want Pegasus to be discussed. It was unprecedented for ten members to attend and to refuse to sign the register in order to deny the Committee a quorum. For good measure the three officials who were to testify before the Committee that day (the IT, Telecoms and Home Secretaries) appear to have been instructed not to attend, making last-minute excuses, which is a grievous assault on the prerogatives of parliamentary committees to summon witnesses. Accountability to Parliament is a cornerstone of our democracy, but it is increasingly being tossed aside in the current regime’s headlong rush to what has been dubbed “elected autocracy”. 

Despite this disappointing approach, I am hopeful that the Supreme Court-appointed committee, headed by a respected judge (Justice Raveendran) and with credible, non-controversial members, would be able to address the question better than a committee of politicians in parliament would have. The judiciary has powers, and a degree of immunity from politics, that would make it better suited than a committee of MPs, with their understandable political interests, to explore all aspects of the Pegasus question.

In saying this I am not joining those who decry Parliament as an institution. The government’s reprehensible behaviour in refusing to debate an issue of grievous national-security concern in Parliament is far more serious than the implications of this specific issue. The government’s refusal to be answerable in any way, shape, or form on an issue of national and international importance, has made a mockery of democracy and of the ordinary Indians the government claims to represent. Avoiding discussion and accountability is the real insult to parliament, not the legislature being bypassed by the judiciary as a result.

There is, of course, a deplorable tendency to claim that what the BJP is doing in the domain of political surveillance is merely what previous Congress governments had done. While surveillance may well have occurred, I have no doubt that past governments respected the rights to privacy and democratic dissent that every Indian citizen is entitled to. Whatever surveillance was conducted was legally authorised under the Telecoms Act and the IT Act and followed due procedure. Certainly the Congress-led UPA Government did not use spyware to infiltrate the devices of opposition politicians, journalists, human-rights activists, or government. The authoritarian behaviour detailed in the Pegasus allegations is beyond the pale for a democratic state.

It is illegal under Sections 43 and 66 of the IT Act, 2000, to introduce malware into any computer device, resource or network. The law even spells out a punishment of three years’ imprisonment and upto 5 lakh rupees fine for doing so! This makes the insertion of Pegasus into the phones of the likes of Rahul Gandhi and Prashant Kishore a serious transgression by whoever has done it. It is also unethical, since it involves the use of taxpayers’ money by the ruling party for its narrow partisan political advantage.

Whereas the US Congress’ investigation of a comparable transgression, the Watergate snooping scandal, led to the resignation of President Nixon himself, our Parliament has been denied even a discussion of the issue, barring the tepid statement by the new IT Minister (who was himself on the list of those who were potentially targeted using Pegasus) on the floor of the House. This is an issue that, given its grave implications for our internal security and individual liberties, should have been addressed by the Home Minister or the PM himself. After all, if our government’s denials were to be believed, then some other government must be snooping on Indian citizens, which is a huge threat to national security. Instead, this government’s refusal to entertain all entreaties by the Opposition to even permit a discussion on the subject itself looks incriminating. If no illegal surveillance took place, why the refusal to accede to the Opposition's request to have an SC monitored probe into the issue? Why the stalling of the Parliamentary Committee’s efforts to discuss the subject, first through the refusal of members from the ruling party to attend and then through the last-minute (and coordinated) dropping out of all key officials from the Ministry who were scheduled to testify before the Committee? Why did we have raids by the IT department on the offices of a prominent national daily that covered the issue widely?

In America, even at the height of the Nixon regime’s popularity after an overwhelming 1972 election victory, there were independent institutions of accountability that ultimately docked the administration for their malfeasance. In India, on the other hand, as a result of their systematic efforts to erode the autonomy of independent institutions of accountability and transparency since coming to power in 2014, these autonomous institutions had so far seemed crippled in their ability to take this government to task on this matter, let alone force the resignation of even a single member of the government. Our hopes, therefore, rest with the committee now appointed by the Supreme Court. May the truth emerge, and justice be done.