Allegations have been leveled against various governments in the past for trying to get secret information by eavesdropping on the phones of the dissidents. It has been proven many times. One of the notorious incidents of phone eavesdropping was the American Watergate scandal that took place fifty years ago from today. Allegations of eavesdropping on phone calls from the Democratic Party's office and its leaders surfaced against then-US President Nixon. Despite hundreds of attempts by the Nixon administration, the scandal could not be covered up. Nixon was eventually forced to resign, and many government officials involved in the incident were punished.
However, this time the allegation of government espionage is much more serious than eavesdropping on the phone. This time the allegation is to steal all the information from the phone. Amnesty International and a number of local and foreign news organizations have jointly claimed that an Israeli company called NSO has sold spy computer software called Pegasus to the governments of various countries and those governments are using that software to monitor anti-government political leaders, journalists and human rights activists by stealing information from their smartphones. They claim they have a list of 50,000 phone numbers who are potential victims of the surveillance. The word 'probable' means that those phones were on the watch list, but it is not certain whether they were monitored or not. Whether really there was surveillance can be ascertained after examining those phones. Examination of some phones revealed evidence of Pegasus surveillance. All of these phone conversations have been recorded via Pegasus. Even the information about who is sending what message and to whom has been stolen from the phones. This software is so powerful that it is not difficult to read even the hidden messages by breaking the code.
There is a lot of uproar about Pegasus in India too. Opposition parties have stalled the parliament demanding a discussion on this issue, but the government is reluctant to do so. What has the Indian government got to do with this espionage? Those who have a list of those phones claim that the list contains about 1000 phone numbers in India, which may have been monitored. They have been able to identify the owners of more than one hundred fifty phones. It includes the names of leaders of opposition political parties, journalists known as critics of the government, and protesting activists, many of whom have already been arrested and imprisoned by the government on false charges. But, more surprisingly, the list also includes the names of various industrialists, bureaucrats, even members of the Sangh family.
The Israeli company NSO, which has sold the software, has made it clear that it sells the software only to governments, not to any individual or non-government organization. Moreover, this software and the computer system which is needed to use it costs a lot, and it also costs billions of rupees more to keep it running, which is difficult for any person or organization except the government. If that is true, then the task of monitoring these people's phones cannot be done by anyone other than the Modi government. Moreover, a glance at the list reveals that almost all the people named in India are known to be staunch opponents of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. For that reason, it is not difficult to understand their interests behind this surveillance. The government's statement on the issue has increased rather than diminished this suspicion. The new IT minister said in a statement to Parliament that the central government had not carried out any surveillance in an unauthorized manner. On one hand it is clear that the government may have carried out authorized surveillance. On the other hand and more importantly, though the specific question of whether or not the government bought the Pegasus software was repeatedly asked, the government not even once stated clearly that they did not buy or use the Pegasus software. Sometime ago, the defense ministry made a statement in the Parliament while presenting the accounts of expenditure that it had not made any transaction with the NSO. Even if that is true, it does not prove that no other ministry has done so. Doesn't this strange, confusing position of the government help to strengthen the suspicion against them?
The Israeli company NSO, which owns the Pegasus software, has justified the sale of such deadly spy software by saying that they have developed this software to use against terrorists so as to ensure the safety of the general public. Is that so? But, against whom is the software being used? Political leaders, protesting activists or journalists! That is, this software has nothing to do with terrorism. The real purpose of the government is to monitor the opposition. There are many reasons to monitor the opposition. For example, if the plans of the opposition can be known by eavesdropping on their discussions, one can be alert about it and take action in advance. And if any information is leaked from this conversation that can be used against them, then it is icing on the cake. Then, it is possible to force them to work for the government by blackmailing them. The news media that leaked this information also said that surveillance on the phones of many MLAs was conducted by using Pegasus when the JD (S) -Congress coalition government was being ousted.
But, spying on smartphones or computers is now has a more deadly use. With the help of such kind of spy software, documents can be inserted into a smartphone or computer without the user's knowledge, which is not his at all. But he can be framed by claiming that it belonged to him. It is now known that this is exactly what was done against the two defendants arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. The government and investigators had claimed that these men plotted to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and evidence of that conspiracy is the number of letters found on their computers. A U.S. computer forensic agency examined hard disk copies of the two jailed activists and said that several letters used as evidence had certainly never been written on their computers. So, how did those letters get to that computer? The U.S. computer agency said the letters were secretly inserted into the activists' computers from outside through spy software. How many people could have imagined that such a devilry could be performed through the use of technology before this incident was leaked?
Smartphones, computers, etc. are now so intertwined with people's lives that almost all private confidential information of their personal lives can be found on their smartphones or computers - which people they communicate with, what they discuss, what letters or messages are exchanged between them. It is even possible to know a lot about their needs and desires from their internet usage information, of which the person himself may not be fully aware, but it can be captured through his internet usage information, unknowingly. As a result, surveillance on the phone or computer means monitoring every moment of that person, even the most private moment. This is exactly what the government or the state is doing now in the case of their opponents - the leaked information about Pegasus software shows this fact. The intelligence system of the government or the state has reached such a level that they can keep every moment of the life of any person or group of individuals within the ambit of their surveillance as they wish. Today, governments may be monitoring the lives of 50,000 people worldwide. But, if this continues, it will be possible to monitor the lives of millions and millions of people in the future. Because of the rapid decline in the cost of such computer systems, it will now be possible to monitor billions of people at the same cost as the cost of surveillance on the people at present.
If the surveillance is seen in conjunction with the strategy of unleashing various investigative agencies against the opposition, then the government's intentions become clearer. If anyone opposes the Modi government and it becomes dangerous for them, then the government tools like Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department and above all CBI are being used against them so as to compel them to speak on behalf of the government. Over and above there are the National Security Act, IT Act, UAPA and Article 124 of the Constitution, i.e., the sedition clause, etc. Recently, new IT rules have been added to this list, which has strengthened the government's tool of harassment. The scope of these laws is so wide that almost any action can be charged with terrorism, sedition, treason, or disruption of peace using these clauses. Even if it is not possible to prove the allegations, it is very difficult to get bail if arrested and that is why imprisonment for a few months on false charges or even for years without trial is possible. The government of all parties tries and has tried to harass the opposition and silence them in this way. However, during the Modi government, its level has increased a lot. According to a web portal called Article 14, 11,000 people have been charged in 816 sedition cases from 2010 till date. Most of these cases have taken place after 2014 during Modi's tenure. Of these 11,000 defendants, 65% have been charged after 2014. From 2010 to 2014, the average number of sedition cases filed per year was 62, but after 2014, it has increased to 79.8 or about 80. This section is also being applied more in the BJP ruled states. The application of this section is so widespread that even the Supreme Court of the country has raised the question of whether this section should be kept or not. There is also Section 66 (a) of the IT Act, under which many people are being harassed for exchanging certain messages on the Internet. Despite the repeal of this section by the Supreme Court in 2015, various governments continue to harass people by enforcing this section. Their secret discussions will be very useful for the government to dress down the dissidents - so, the government's surveillance will have to be judged accordingly.
Another feature of the BJP regime is that not only the police or administration is working to harass the opposition by enforcing these laws of the state, but also the forces of BJP or the Sangh Parivar are always trying this. On the one hand, there is the BJP's IT cell, which is monitoring the internet media- who are opposing the Sangh Parivar's extremist Hindutva ideology, who are daring to speak out against the misdeeds of the BJP government or its leaders and ministers. On the other hand, there are Sangh Parivar forces, which are always patrolling the streets to keep an eye on the common people. They are keeping a close eye on who can be framed under the Go-rakhsha Act or the Love Jihad Act, and sometimes with the police, sometimes without the police, taking action to punish the ‘criminals’. As a result, not only the upper class people are being monitored, but also the common people. Spy software is not the only method of this surveillance.
Even though the extent of surveillance is very high during Modi's BJP government or in the BJP-ruled states, but it should never be assumed that only the BJP or the Sangh Parivar runs surveillance. Surveillance is run by the government of any party. In fact, a society that is divided into a handful of exploiters on the one hand and the majority of exploited, poor people on the other, a society that stands on exploitation-oppression-deprivation, a society where mountains of wealth accumulates on one side and infinite poverty on the other, a society where various kinds of intense oppression are prevalent, where the rulers of the society serve the interests of a handful of rich exploiters, there will always be intense protests against the rulers in that society among the countless exploited, deprived, oppressed people -those dissensions are sometimes manifested intensely, while sometimes those remain submerged as an undercurrent. In such a society, surveillance will obviously be needed to protect the system of making profit by exploitation-oppression, to guard the abundant wealth of a handful of rich people. This is an indispensable way to retain personal property.
That is why in any bourgeois democracy all the rulers keep an eye on the citizens. If we understand that democracy means equal rights for everyone, that democracy is not possible in bourgeois democracy. Democracy here is the only for the ruling bourgeoisie. Those who think that real democracy is possible only in capitalism, these instances of surveillance can help open their eyes if they do not want to feign ignorance. Without repression, without depriving the exploited people of their rights, without monitoring them, a handful of exploiters cannot rule over the majority exploited. Therefore, bourgeois democracy is democracy only in the name; it is democracy for the bourgeoisie, not democracy for the people. True democracy - that is, equality of all people in all respects is impossible in bourgeois democracy. Democracy can only be expanded under the rule of the majority of the people, the workers and the peasants. Since the ruling people in that society are the majority of the people, the eyes of billions of people are on the handful of exploiters to save that state of exploited people. That is why there is no need for any separate system like eavesdropping or spy software on the phone to run the surveillance.
In any bourgeois democracy, democracy for the exploited classes is absent or very narrow, that is one aspect. Another aspect is that there is always fighting and squabblingbetween different representative parties of the ruling class to seize power in the government. The parties in government are always wary of opposition parties, which in turn try to overthrow the current rulers and seize power on their own. That is why the rulers are always on tenterhooks lest the opposition oust them from power by conspiring against them. As a result, the rulers can never rest on their laurels. That is why they are always monitoring the opposition.
If authoritarian tendencies or fascist tendencies continue to grow in bourgeois democracies, bourgeois democratic rights shrink, and even the democracies of opposition bourgeois political parties shrink. That is what is happening during the Modi-led BJP government. This is one aspect in which the rulers are increasingly attacking the working people, including the workers and peasants in the interest of the big bourgeoisie. Another aspect is that in order to establish the Sangh Parivar ideology in the society, they are attacking various sections of the society who are opposed to their extremist Hindutva ideology, so that the triumph of extremist Hindutva can advance freely by keeping them underfoot. They are also attacking bourgeois journalists, bourgeois intellectuals, who are opposing the politics of their extremist Hindutva. That is why they are not only sharpening the tools of repression against the working people, they are increasing them to be used against other sections of the bourgeoisie, as well as they are compelled to increase their surveillance. Pegasus is a proof of that.
However, there is another side to this. When do the rulers have to increase their surveillance over the people or the opposition? When they start to get scared, they start to panic sensing a rebellion against them. The more they increase their attacks, the more the protests against them increase and when the protests increase, the rulers can feel the heat. Today, it is true that though the protests of the working people, including the workers and peasants, against the Modi government have begun to grow, they have not yet intensified. But, it is not that there is no protest. Protests against the politics of extremist Hindutva have been going on for some time, mainly among students, intellectuals and journalists, which has worried the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. On the other hand, when the Modi government first came to power, the strong trust and confidence the people had in it, that has begun to erode today. Protests have also started to increase among the toiling people. The Sangh Parivar and the BJP is realizing that their control is getting loosened. The more they realize that, the more they are worried; the more they are sharpening their tools of repression, the more they are increasing surveillance. When the rulers stand on the support of the people, for whatever reason, they do not need them. Only when they are worried about their future do they need to step up surveillance and repression. For that reason, on one hand just as their surveillance, their honing of the tools of repression exposes their horrible, monstrous appearance; on the other hand, it also reveals their weakness. One should not just look at it from one side, it should be seen from both sides - otherwise it will be wrong.
August 10, 2021 Editorial Board, For a Proletarian Party
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