The opposition parties are either co-conspirators or victims of the international design to malign India internationally. The Game Plan is to club India with other countries such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda and Togo and show that India has become increasingly intolerant and the Government is using illegal means to spy on its citizens.
The insinuation that Indian Government may have used Pegasus spyware to do illegal snooping has emerged from two organizations that have joined hands- Paris based NGO Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. The formers’ questionable funding, including by George Soros, who is known for his antipathy to Indian nationalism and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, casts huge doubt in the process of including phone numbers of Indians also while preparing the list.
On Amnesty the less said the better. It had to exit India when it was caught violating the law of the land and was doing business to use the FDI route to fund its questionable activities in India. Alleged abuse of Human Rights is its ruse to try to flex muscle in the host countries and support those that support anti-national and terrorist activities.
Besides this, of the 22,400 NGOs registered under the FCRA, the Government has already cancelled the registration certificates of more than 20,600 for violating various provisions of the FCRA. Most of these were not filing annual returns which is mandatory. Close to Rs 58,000 crore had come through this FCRA route in 2016-17 demonstrating the clout these NGOs had despite not giving any accountability. Greenpeace specializing on Environmental issues was also violating the FCRA and had to close its offices in India.
Hence, all these forces might have conspired to launch an attack on Indian Government under Modi even when nothing existed. This assumption has more basis than the story that there is a list that the NSO would like to spy using its spyware Pegasus. The NSO has denied having any such list. What is the source of this list? Has any phone been found to have the spyware? Does mere presence of a mobile number make the number target? Who prepared the list and why?
By now we know that Forbidden Stories and Amnesty prepared this list after an investigation about which none knows. There are more than 16 media outlets listed as partners including The Washington Post and The Guardian in various counties. The bias of such foreign publications against India is well known. We already know that The New York Times sought to recruit a journalist in India who would be anti-establishment and anti-Modi. In India this consortium of Pegasus news picked up a website that is known for spitting venom against the Modi Government and not any credible newspaper. Any other credible newspaper would have vetted the story before publishing such sensational slur at the nation.
Spying is allowed and is legal if done in the interest of securing the State from disruptive forces both inside and outside the country.
The most famous spy story demonstrating the most blatant misuse of this power was discovered when the then Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had bugged the office of the then Finance Minister Pranab Mookherji in 2011. Many a time, various Governments including the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) under Dr Manmohan Singh, have accepted tapping phones of people under the due process of law.
So definitely the Opposition’s tirade on Pegasus issue is not about legal snooping. Based on motivated and fictional report, whose authenticity cannot be established, they are claiming that the Government has used the spyware to bug phones of many important people in the country. The Government has flatly denied and said it has not done any illegal tapping of anyone’s phone.
Why is the Opposition then not ready to listen to reason? Are they an accomplice in the task to launch a tirade against Modi thinking that this would produce their Watergate moment? Before launching such an atrocious attack, they should have done their due diligence, produced some facts. They should have also contemplated that there are only 300 phones in the alleged list of 50,000. Quite possible that someone inserted these numbers to sensationalize and settle score.
Now what is the course left to them? Either they come out with facts proving that the government has been on the wrong or they can go to the police and lodge a complaint about hacking. Using spyware to snoop is nothing but hacking which is crime and falls in the domain of cyber-crime. Police would do a much better investigation than those who have produced the list. But for that, Congress leader Mr Rahul Gandhi will have to handover his mobile for investigation. Will he dare to do this? What is Mr Gandhi trying to hide?
From all count, the Pegasus controversy appears to be a toolkit to Defame India. Why would the report, otherwise, come a day before Parliament’s Monsoon session giving opposition a handle to disrupt Parliament and try to make this an issue. Also, It has come at a time of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to India. Does it not remind us of Delhi riots orchestrated by vested interests during US President Donald Trump’s visit to India in February last year.
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