By K Raveendran’
The defence ministry may not be involved, but that is only a small part of the government, although an important part. There is neither denial nor confirmation whether any other agency of the government, including the most likely home ministry or the IT ministry, was involved. The home ministry under Amit Shah is not known to set store by its commitment towards the protection of individual liberties. Similarly, the IT ministry, particularly under Ravi Shankar Prasad, has shown little respect for privacy and freedom of expression, both of which are technically the primary concern of the ministry.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s plea to the Supreme Court hearing the Pegasus snooping case amounts to virtually admitting that the government has things to hide. The Modi government’s approach in this highly sensitive issue has been suspect right from the beginning and every new development is an indirect acknowledgment that it is not above blame. If it was ready to come clean, it had several occasions to do so, which would have averted the logjam in parliament that is costing the nation dearly. Prime Minister Modi keeps lamenting about the loss of legislative time, but is doing precious little to clear the air so that normalcy can be restored.
The government strategy is to somehow obstruct the Supreme Court proceedings, especially as it got a foretaste of the court’s stand on the first day that the truth has to come out. The brazen attempt to buy time so that it can first avoid the embarrassment in parliament over further adverse remarks by the court has betrayed the government’s complicity. It was shocking that when the entire nation was waiting to hear the government’s response to the Pegasus petitions when the court took up the case, it even failed to send its law officers. This meant that the court had to grant the government time to come back prepared.
More diversionary tactics was on show in parliament, when a specific question was asked in the Rajya Sabha by CPI-M member Dr N Sivadasan whether the government has carried out any transaction with Israel’s NSO Group Technologies and ‘if so, the details thereof’. The answer was as much mischievous as it was misleading: the defence ministry has not entered into any transaction with the NSO Group.
The government has somehow managed to see the monsoon session come to a close, without a discussion on the vexed issue, but it is doubtful if it can be described as an honourable conclusion. The needle of suspicion remains pointed to wherever it was ever since the news of the abuse broke out.
The next course of the government action in the Supreme Court is also predictable. The next anchor in the government’s defence is most likely to be the invocation of national security. The Modi government had used this route effectively to stonewall further disclosures about the Rafale deal when the Supreme Court was dealing with a clutch of petitions on the controversial deal, particularly the aspects of the fighter aircraft’s final price and the out of the way accommodation of Reliance group interests.
When the court overruled the government’s opposition and insisted on specific details, the government invoked confidentiality in the name of national security and submitted the information in a sealed envelope.
The contents of the envelope have not come out yet, but the announcement of a new probe into the alleged corruption and favouritism in the fighter deal with India has reopened the issue in France and the French national financial prosecutor’s office is already looking into possible wrongdoings. The new French investigations have provided a shot in the arm of the opposition campaign against Modi’s Rafale deal, particularly Rahul Gandhi’s relentless attack against the prime minister for reworking the terms to favour his friends.
The resurfacing of the Rafale scandal is yet another manifestation of the fact that it will be truth that triumphs ultimately, an aphorism that we keep invoking at all official functions in and out of context. But there is nothing yet that negates the true import of the ultimate symbol of hope.
And just as it is happening to the Rafale deal, the misdeeds in the use of Pegasus to snoop on political rivals, journalists and those who may hold a contrarian opinion cannot be hidden by the labyrinths of secrecy that the government is building around its activities.
(IPA Service)