For those leaders of the country who are tearing their hair trying to figure out how to get the economy moving, boost growth, increase investment and create jobs, it would be instructive to look at the plight of the largest economic class in the country – agricultural labourers. Numbering upward of 14 crore, they are the poorest, least paid workers, forced to seasonally work multiple jobs just to survive.

The latest data, collected by the Labour Bureau under the Ministry of Labour (available with the Reserve Bank of India for male workers) shows that over the past five years, wages of male agricultural workers has increased at a shockingly low rate of just Rs.15 per year. (See chart below) That is about 6% per year or 29% in five years.

In August 2022, the last month for which data was available at the time of writing, the wage was Rs.343 per day. Remember that the agricultural workers work only seasonally – as and when there is work in the fields depending on crop cycles. They may get ploughing or transplanting, weeding or watering or harvesting work for 10-15 days at a stretch, then a gap of weeks or months. So, the average wage over the year from agricultural work diminishes to almost nothing if spread out over the whole year.

But the story doesn’t end there. Prices have risen continuously in the same period by about 28%, as shown in the chart above based on the officially estimated Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Rural Labour. That effectively wipes out the meagre increase in wages. In other words, ‘real’ or actual wages have remained stagnant or even dipped slightly.

Caste and Gender Discrimination

The data on wages given above is for male workers. Female workers – which number more in the agricultural labour workforce than in other sectors of the economy – suffer from institutionalised discrimination. For example, in August 2022, while the male agricultural worker gets an average of Rs.343 per day, female workers’ average daily wage is recorded at Rs.271. That’s over 20% less than the male worker. Such differences are present in all the types of work that male and female rural labourers do. There are many types of work that only males undertake, like plumbers, carpenters, electricians, blacksmiths, drivers, etc.

It is noteworthy that some of the lowest paid jobs in rural areas are those which are usually taken up only by the most socially oppressed sections of society, that is, the Scheduled Castes (SC). For example, ‘sweeping and cleaning workers’ were reported to be getting Rs.290 per day (male) and Rs.269 per day (female) on an average, in August 2022. Since a large proportion of agricultural labourers are from SC communities, during the lean season or even on daily basis, they supplement their incomes with doing this work.

Increase Wages to Boost Economy

So, what’s the connection of all this to the economy, investment, growth and jobs? The reason why the economy is in the doldrums is because there is no buying power in the hands of the people. Low wages ensure that people are unable to spend much, barely managing to purchase the most essential commodities or services. This means there is very limited demand in the economy. So, no amount of cajoling or incentives will lure private capital to start expanding productive capacities.

The government, on its part, can possibly spend more but the present dispensation is shackled by its commitment to the neoliberal dogma (like Liz Truss, erstwhile UK Prime Minister) of restricting government expenditure. So, nothing is going to come from their side. The result is that corporate profits are being ensured only by squeezing workers, keeping their wages low and in fact, keeping a reserve army of unemployed so that wages remain depressed. This also means that the terms of trade between urban/industrial sectors and rural/agrarian sectors are highly skewed – resources flow away from rural/agrarian sectors towards urban/industrial sectors.

As long as this stranglehold persists, wages will remain depressed, unemployment will remain rife and profit margins will remain high. The Narendra Modi government may dole out this or that scheme, reluctantly, to give some relief to people and win their votes. But, in the long run, this is not going to work and the misery of the working people is bound to burst out.

If agricultural workers were to get better wages that would help them lead better lives, the whole economy would benefit because the sheer numbers are so big. Any infusion of more buying power in the hands of 14 crore people would decisively boost the economy, create demand, help expand production and help increase employment in other sectors.

Organisations representing agricultural workers have been demanding for long that a comprehensive law covering all aspects of agricultural labourers’ work should be brought in by the government. It is a sign of how deep the neglect of this vast labouring class is, that till this ‘Amrit Kaal’ of 75 years since Independence there has been no legislation for protecting the rights of agricultural workers, providing for dignified wages and working conditions or social security.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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On the eve of the 75th Anniversary of Independence in August, a nine-year-old Dalit boy died from injuries suffered weeks earlier. The boy, a student of class 3 in Jalore district of Rajasthan, was severely beaten by his teacher for allegedly touching a water pot. In September, a 15-year-old boy in UP’s Auriya district similarly died after his teacher beat him up for making a mistake in his test. A few days later, two Dalit sisters from a village in Lakhimpur Kheri of UP were raped and murdered, their bodies left hanging from a tree. This series of atrocities hit the media headlines, shocking the country and beyond. Culprits were arrested, compensation announced and outrage registered duly by one and all.

But such incidents are a fraction of the violence and oppression that Dalits continue to suffer in India, which is claimed to be entering the Amrit Kaal – starting from the 75th Anniversary of Independence and going up to the centenary in 2047. Since 1991, from when the data is available, over 7 lakh atrocities have been officially recorded by the police. That is about five every hour. And these are just the officially registered cases. A large number of cases routinely go unregistered because of the connections of higher caste culprits and survivors being in fear of the perpetrators.

Some States Showing Increasing Violence

In the last three years, from 2019 to 2021, the country saw an 11% increase in atrocities against Dalits. Recorded cases rose from 45,961 in 2019 to 50,900 in 2021, according to the latest available data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

The increase is driven by enormous spikes in this violence (and their registration) in a clutch of states. The chart below shows the data for states with a higher percentage increase in anti-dalit atrocities than the national average.

As can be seen, the entire northern Indian belt – barring Bihar – has shown a spike in atrocities that is higher than the national average. In Bihar (not shown in the chart), as also in neighbouring Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, the number of registered atrocities declined.

It is noticeable that almost all Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states are exhibiting a larger-than-average increase, the exception being Gujarat. Such states include Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. But several Opposition-governed states like Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra (led by an Opposition alliance in the period covered) also figure in this list.

While the upper caste-oriented ideology of the Sangh Parivar, including the BJP, can be presumed to contribute to this worrisome situation, it needs to be stressed that caste oppression is systemic and weaved in the fabric of Indian society. It may get aggravated because of government negligence or even connivance, but the state machinery itself is significantly influenced by upper caste biases. On the other hand, Dalit communities are primarily poor, landless, labouring sections, which have been stigmatised and marginalised for centuries, without the wherewithal to resist oppression. Even political empowerment – like having elected representatives – has not done much to restrain the stranglehold of caste oppression.

Violence in Relation to Dalit Population

A different dimension of the issue is revealed if one looks at the crime rate, that is, the number of crimes per 1 lakh population of Scheduled Castes (Dalits) in a particular state. This measure is meaningful because the Dalit population varies widely across states; hence comparing the number of atrocities is often misleading. States with a higher Dalit population may have a higher number of cases, which makes its comparison with a state with a small Dalit population untenable.

The chart below shows the crime rate for atrocities against Dalits in states with over 40 lakh Dalit population and higher than the country-wide average crime rate of about 25 cases of atrocities per lakh of Dalit population.

As can be seen, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are again the two states with the highest crime rates, almost two and a half times the national average. Other states in this list include Bihar, Telangana, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana (all above 30), and Gujarat (just below 30, at 29.5). Notable states with a relatively high Dalit population but not so high rates of crimes against Dalits include West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, and Karnataka.

Strikingly, the northern belt of states is again featured in this – showing that they are the states with noticeably higher rates of crimes against Dalits.

What are Dominant Political Parties Doing?

It is strange that the oppression of Dalits continues unabated and across the board despite all the talk of Dalit empowerment by dominant parties like the BJP and Congress, as also state-level strong parties like the Samajwadi Party or the Biju Janata Dal, or even the Bahujan Samaj Party that claims to represent the interests of the Dalit population.

While strengthening laws, and their diligent and unbiased implementation through the police and courts are necessary steps to be taken at the administrative levels, the situation calls for a much more extensive change in the social and economic realms. Only through such measures – like land to the Dalit landless, jobs, education, housing, and medical care – can the material basis for their empowerment be laid. This, of course, needs to be accompanied by a sweeping social campaign to break the practice of discrimination and violence.

The dominant political parties, and their multiple affiliates, especially the RSS-BJP cohort, need to be asked why they have not undertaken such a course until now, despite claiming to be electoral and socio-cultural leaders of a large population segment.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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As you read this, Prime Minister Modi would have delivered his address to the country from the Red Fort in New Delhi and probably announced a few more programmes or schemes, imbued with the customary patting one’s back on having done so much.  In the run up to this 75th Anniversary of Independence, the narrative of achievements has been all pervasive, laced with the stress on putting up the tricolour to show one’s patriotism. The people are of course happy at the fact that 75 years ago, the British were finally thrown out. But today’s life is hard and distressing for too many Indians for them to really savour this freedom. 

What can be done to really lay the foundations of a strong and prosperous country? The people need to be prosperous, united and imbued with modern thinking. Here are some major policies that can take India in that direction. These policies and measures would require a drastic change from the present direction under PM Modi’s stewardship. But that will be decided in due course, when the time comes for electing the government.

People’s Welfare 

Some immediate measures are necessary to improve the economic condition of the people who are reeling under multiple blows of price rise, hunger, joblessness, costly healthcare and education, and lack of basic human necessities like drinking water, housing etc. Hence, the following needs to be done immediately:

• Universalise Public Distribution System: Supply all essential commodities; cover whole population; 
• Basic Amenities: Provide safe drinking water, sanitisation and housing for all.
• Employment: Provide jobs for all; expand work and increase wages under MGNREGA; enact urban job guarantee scheme; provide unemployment allowance.
• Scrap New Education Policy: Increase Central allocations on education to 6% of GDP; regulate private educational institutions; revamp syllabus and curriculum to strengthen Constitutional values and scientific temper; eliminate digital divide in education.
• Universal Public Health Care: make it govt funded; increase central expenditure on health to at least 5 per cent of GDP; reduce prices of essential drugs; regulate private health facilities.

Safeguard Economic Sovereignty

The Modi government has severely eroded economic sovereignty by reckless privatisation of the country’s natural and industrial resources and by inviting predatory foreign capital to penetrate important sectors of the economy. This is accompanied by withdrawal of public funding, which means large scale distress for the people – now and in the future. What is needed is the following:

• Reverse privatisation of PSUs and government departments; Scrap National Monetisation Pipeline;
• Govt. agencies should provide affordable services like water, electricity, public transport, health and education; 
• Promote MSMEs;
• Tax the super-rich; 
• Hike public investment to build much needed infrastructure, generate jobs and boost domestic demand; 
• Implement land reforms; 
• Develop agriculture through cooperative farming, production and marketing, strengthen India’s food security.

Strengthen secular, democratic, federal character of the Republic 

Never before since Independence has India seen such a systematic attack on the unity of people by bringing religious bigotry into mainstream politics by the Sangh Parivar and its political wing, the BJP. This is damaging the fight against anti-people policies and also diverts attention from basic issues, besides posing violent threat to minorities, Dalits, Adivasis and under privileged sections. The three pillars of the Constitution – secularism, democracy and federalism – are under threat as centralisation of powers and destruction of democratic institutions is being done relentlessly. Hence there is need to include secularism, that is, separation of religion from the state and politics, as a Constitutional tenet. The government should ban campaigns of hate and violence based on communal polarisation as also all illegal private armies and vigilante groups. A stringent law against lynching should be passed an implemented. The life, liberties and rights of all religious minorities should be steadfastly protected. The system and state institutions should be cleansed of communal personnel inducted by the present regime. The discriminatory CAA  should be repealed and the proposed NPR/NRC abandoned.

To safeguard democratic rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, UAPA, the sedition provision in IPC, AFSPA and National Security Act (NSA) should be repealed and the death penalty abolished. Electoral reforms including introduction of proportional representation with partial list system should be brought in and the Electoral Bond Scheme scrapped. 

Centre-State relations should be recast with more powers to states. Fiscal federalism needs to be strengthened by sharing central surcharges and cesses which are presently not shared with States. The Inter-State Council, Planning Commission and National Development Council should be revived. Full statehood of J&K with its autonomy should be restored and abrogation of Articles 370/35A should be repealed.

Working Class and Peasantry

The working class and peasantry have suffered the most under the present regime, although the history of this exploitation stretches far into the past. In order to ensure a life of dignity for working class families, a statutory minimum wage of not less than Rs. 26,000 per month for unskilled workers, which is linked with the Consumer Price Index is essential. The four Labour Codes should be scrapped, all workers should get guarantee of social security.  

For farmers, statutory MSPs for all crops and all farmers on the basis of the C2+50 per cent formula must be established. There should be a one time complete loan waiver by the Central government so that the unbearable indebtedness is done away with. Agricultural workers should come under the protection of a central law on wages and social security.

Social Justice

Under the Modi government, there has been an uptick in discrimination and violence against Dalits and Adivasis while central allocations have remained short of the norms. Caste oppression continues to flourish and it is often encouraged by ruling parties. While fighting to end caste oppression, special measures are needed to ensure basic human rights to Dalits and Adivasis. A central legislation for special component plan for SCs and an ST sub-plan with an empowered committee to monitor its implementation should be brought in. The Constitutional and legal provisions for Adivasi rights to forest lands, livelihood and culture should be protected. Reservations of jobs in private sector should be ensured through law. Manual scavenging should be strictly abolished through legal means and stringent action taken against this practice as well as any forms of untouchability. The Forest Rights Act should be strictly and speedily implemented. A caste census to enumerate OBCs must be carried out.

Women’s Rights

Women’s rights have taken a blow under the twin onslaughts of the regressive ideology of the Sangh Parivar and BJP on the one hand and the neoliberal economic policies on the other hand. Women’s employment has continued to dwindle while their wages remain abysmal and below those of men doing the same work. Special efforts must be made to provide jobs to women as part of employment strategies. Violence against women continues unabated, with 30% women reporting physical and sexual violence according to the latest NFHS-5. This needs to be addressed both legally as well as through mass awareness and rooting out patriarchal mentality through mass effort.

Environment

The continued dilution of environmental protection laws should be stopped. Energy equality for all must be ensured and conservation of forests, water resources, wetlands and mountains and other fragile regions should be given priority with participation of people. Renewable energy should be promoted  and all types of pollution should be regulated with strict action against violators.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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A recently released survey report says that over 96% of toilets in rural India have either septic tanks or different kinds of pits to collect human excreta. [See chart below] The report (#584) is based on a survey carried out by the National Statistical Office (NSO), formerly known as NSSO, under the ministry of statistics. Since the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) officially claims that over 10 crore individual household latrines have been built as of date, there have to be about 9.8 crore such septic tanks and pits out there. 

However, there is no word about whether these tanks/pits are being emptied out and cleaned. In fact, there is no money kept aside for this essential task. It is the responsibility of the owner.

It takes a couple of years for a septic tank to fill up and need cleaning. Open pits will fill up faster. Even if there is a system of liquid leaching out (as is the case with most of them) the faecal sludge that remains behind will need to be removed. It is only in the twin leach pit that this faecal sludge will become free of pathogens and odours – but they make up only about 10.6% of the constructed toilets. Even then, the dry sludge in such systems will need to be removed.

Who is going to do this? Ideally, there are machines mounted on trucks that can pump out the sludge (if in a semi-liquid form) and dispose it off somewhere. But no such measure is mandated nor are any funds kept for such machines which cost upwards of Rs.12 lakh each.

This means that families which are proud owners of these toilets will either (a) hire a manual scavengers team to clean the tank/pit periodically; or (b) pay a contractor who has a machine to do the job, if they can find one nearby.

Since we are talking about rural India here, the chances that a convenient machine will be available for hire nearby are remote at least for now. On the other hand, manual scavenging is an age-old practice and there are designated sections of people – designated by their caste – who are supposed to do this ‘dirty’ work, no matter that this inhuman practice is officially illegal. 

So, in all probability the practice of manual scavenging will be the path of choice. That is, some people will be summoned and paid for emptying out the collected excreta in the tank/pit using buckets, lowering themselves into the sludge. They will then take it out somewhere – some drain or nallah, or some empty field or barren land – and dump it there. Several micro-surveys have confirmed that this is what is happening.

On the other hand, if a family does not do this, the only other option would be to stop using the latrine. Otherwise their septic tank or pit will overflow.

Has the govt., which has been proudly talking about the revolution brought in by the Swachh Bharat Mission, considered all this? On paper, yes, they say that periodic cleaning is a must. In fact, they have recently released a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for cleaning sewers and septic tanks, drafted by a premier institution, the Central Public Health & Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO), under the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs. It gives detailed guidance on how many types of safety equipment are essential for those who do this work (44 types) and lays down exact protocol for cleaning. But on the ground, in distant far flung villages, will this really happen? 

More likely, the manual scavengers will work as usual – and continue to die as usual. According to estimates by the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), approximately 2000 manual scavengers die every year based on media reports. These do not fully record the number of such deaths while cleaning septic tanks. Now, with so many new septic tanks these deaths may mount and the illegal practice of manually removing human excreta will get a new shot of life.

Courtesy: News Click

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According to various estimates, Jharkhand has 40% of the country’s mineral resources. It has 27.3 per cent of India’s coal reserves, 26 per cent of iron ore, 18.5 per cent copper ore, besides having deposits of uranium, mica, bauxite, granite, limestone, silver, graphite, magnetite and dolomite. It also has large quantities of stone, limestone and sand. Almost 20% of the state’s revenue arises from mining activities.

But despite this abundance, and despite mining having started as far back as the first decade of the 20th century, Jharkhand continues to be one of the poorest states in the country ranking low on various economic and social indicators. It was thought that after the state was carved out of Bihar in 2000, development will take place. But that also doesn’t seem to have happened. Why?

Disastrous Model

The main reason for this is that mineral resources were seen by the political rulers as something that has to be appropriated, or rather seized, and sold off. The people living on those lands were mostly seen as encumbrances – obstacles that had to be duped or coerced into giving way for big mining companies. Thus mining became an activity that was hostile to the people. They were evicted, turned into serfs, forced to migrate, or survive in inhuman conditions. This naturally led to resistance to mining and all the problems that follow.

Besides this, the other major fault in policy lay in handing over mines to private entities. The contradiction with people intensified as 3963 lessees and 6647 dealers took over mining and trading operations in the state. These were unscrupulous operators with only one objective – to make profit, come what may. As a result, the distance between mineral resources and people became even greater and the relations even more fraught.

Some may argue that the state government does earn royalties and fees from leasing out the mines, so what is wrong with this model? The answer is very simple: the state government (this one and previous ones) have fixed the game in such a way that only a small amount of royalties and other fees finally accrue to it, leaving the operators with even larger profits. As it is, royalty rates are low and mostly levied on pit mouth prices or even cost of production prices for captive mines. Even the CAG has castigated the Jharkhand state govt. for non- or short levy of royalties by applying incorrect rates, under-estimating production, not penalising late payments etc.

As a result, the richest mineral state is earning a paltry sum from various fees it charges from companies that are exploiting the minerals and selling them off for big profits. According to the latest Budget presented by the BJP ministry that rules Jharkhand, in 2018-19, Rs.6783 crore was the revenue (revised estimate) accruing to the Mines Dept. from various fees and rents. In 2019-20, the Budget hoped to collect Rs.8042 crore. In addition, sand extraction yielded revenue of Rs.299 crore in 2018-19 and was expected to yield Rs.362 crore in the current year.

These are paltry sums, nowhere near the actual final sale value of minerals that are being relentlessly extracted from the land in Jharkhand. Partly, they reflect the clout of mining industrialists who keep such rates low by pressurising the govts. But partly they also result from the rather low level of mineral extraction because of not taking the people in confidence and hence facing resistance to mining.

District Mineral Fund Sham

In 2016, the Modi govt. announced that in order to plough back some of the profits that mining activities generate, the mining operators will have to pay 10% of the royalties to a trust set up in each district. It was called the District Minerals Foundation (DMF). The funds thus collected would be used for such development work like providing piped water supply to communities, building roads and toilets, and so on.

Have a look at the fate of this program – called Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana or PM Mining Sector Welfare Programme – in Jharkhand. Remember, the state has been ruled by BJP since 2014, so there is complete political convergence with the BJP led central govt. in Delhi. No questions of any dissonance.

As you can see, just 24% of the funds thus collected have been used for the ‘developmental work’. This data is taken from the PMKKKY portal hosted by the Indian Bureau of Mines, under the Ministry of Mines. There is considerable confusion about the data with the Jharkhand mines dept. showing some other figures and not showing complete data. Expenditure figures are available only on the above quoted source.

Clearly, the whole thing has turned into a macabre joke. It seems all the projects sanctioned till date in Jharkhand – some 25,000 odd – are still in progress! In three years not a single one has been completed.

Meanwhile the state’s inhabitants continue to get ground down in abject poverty, face joblessness and the state has reported some of the most shocking numbers in terms of malnutrition, even starvation deaths. The coming elections may see the BJP state govt. dislodged, going by the widespread discontent, but a deeper relook is necessary at the mining and mineral policy if the people are ever to get the benefit of these resources.

Courtesy: News Click

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The recent WhatsApp hacking scandal and the Indian government’s response reminds one of this joke about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson: they are on a camping trip and go to sleep in a tent. In the middle of the night, Holmes shakes Watson awake and asks, “Watson, what do you see?” Watson says he sees thousands of stars, to which Holmes replies, “You idiot, somebody has stolen our tent!”

IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the media that the government had asked WhatAapp (which is owned by Facebook) to give an explanation. Of course, WhatsApp/Facebook should be called out. But what about the Israeli surveillance company called NSO Group that sold its Pegasus spyware to, as yet, unknown clients so that they could hack into the phones of at least 17 Indian lawyers, activists and journalists using a flaw in WhatsApp’s digital infrastructure? The Modi government has very friendly relations with the Israelis. Should they not ask Prime Minister Netanyahu or the Israeli intelligence apparatus to press NSO to reveal the clients? Remember that the Israeli government has reportedly classified Pegasus as a ‘weapon’ because of its very powerful features and its potentially dangerous use.
 

Who Benefits?

After all, the big question here is this: cui bono, that is, who benefits? Who would want the phone records/activity of Shalini Gera of the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and Bhima Koregaon case accused Sudha Bharadwaj’s lawyer; Advocate Nihalsingh Rathod, who heads the Human Rights Law Network in Nagpur, and is a lawyer of accused Surendra Gadling in the same case; Bela Bhatia, Adivasi rights activist from Chhattisgarh; Anand Teltumbde, academic and writer on Dalit issues, also an accused in the same case; Ankit Grewal, who represented Sudha Bharadwaj; and several other activists and journalists?
Only the Indian government or its agencies, or even state governments would have any advantage in getting their hands on their phone data. The 10 persons involved in the Bhima Koregaon case have been accused of such serious charges like planning to assassinate PM Modi, overthrow the government, and so on. Till date, despite over a year of investigations, nothing much has emerged, which makes for a strong motivation to scrounge around for some clue in the activists’ phones.

That this is not just a pie in the sky is confirmed by reports of how Pegasus has been put to use elsewhere in the world by governments. There are reports of it having been used in Mexico to spy upon journalists, in Rwanda to spy upon a human rights’ activists and there is even a link to the infamous murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi.
 

Different Agencies Interested in Spying

In December 2018, the government notified that 10 central security agencies and authorities would be allowed to carry out surveillance of all electronic communications, internet-based activity and computers, empowered under the Information Technology Act, 2000. The matter was challenged in the Supreme Court where in March 2019, the government said that it had a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for such surveillance. But the bottom line was that bureaucrats would review applications for surveillance—and we all know how bureaucrats function. The petitioners in the Supreme Court had pointed out that in 2017, enforcement authorities ordered Facebook, Google and Twitter for data of more than 200,000 accounts under various laws. Earlier, the Srikrishna Committee had said that review authorities meet once in two months and have the task of reviewing more than 15,000-18,000 surveillance orders. So, there is a whole lot of agencies in this game and they are given the green signal more often than not.

In fact, it is not just the central government and its agencies that would be interested in spying on the current bunch of activists. As the emails leaked from the ‘Hacking Team’ (now archived at Wikileaks) have shown, state police departments too are actively seeking tools to snoop on their targets. The case documented is of the Andhra Pradesh police scouting around for surveillance tools in 2015. As recently as March this year, there were reports that the intelligence department of Andhra Pradesh state government had acquired an Israeli device or tool for breaking WhatsApp encryption. This was just before the Lok Sabha elections in May this year.

So, the answer to the question ‘who benefits?’ by acquiring Pegasus yields a whole phalanx of deadly curious agencies, both central and state-level. Who knows, there may even be some private agencies that have been roped in to provide the services! After all, many unthinkable services are these days outsourced to shadowy NGOs, like the one which handled the recent MEPs visit to Kashmir.
 

Smoke and Mirrors

Ministry officials have been quoted in media reports as complaining that senior WhatsApp officials never mentioned this leak in meetings with them in May this year. WhatsApp has quickly countered, saying they had mentioned it. Other reports suggest that officials complained still more that WhatsApp just gave them ‘technical jargon’ (sic) implying thereby that the IT Ministry couldn’t understand it.

Ridiculous as all this sounds, there is a method in this madness. Prasad may or may not be in the loop on the whole thing. But all this speculation about WhatsApp and Prasad’s indignation has created a fog within days of the scandal spilling out. It has become a game of smoke and mirrors. The government, through Prasad, is seemingly outraged and full of righteous indignation, just as it was in March 2018, when it was revealed that a UK-based data analytics company Cambridge Analytica (CA) had stolen data of 87 million Facebook users. Prasad had similarly fulminated against Facebook and threatened legal action.

One and a half years later, nothing has happened as far as India is concerned although in the UK, Cambridge Analytica closed down and Facebook has paid 500,000 pounds to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), to settle the latter’s investigation into the scandal. India’s Central Bureau of Investigation is still playing 20-questions with Facebook and the now defunct CA.

As this cut and thrust between India and WhatsApp continues, nobody is paying attention to whoever used Pegasus to snoop on diverse Indian citizens. Maybe that’s what the government wants.

Courtesy: https://www.newsclick.in/
 

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Representational image.
 

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In the past five and a half years, several key data releases have been excised, mangled, delayed or even suppressed. Since these are all generated, collated and processed by dedicated departments of the central government, it is not a leap of imagination that there is some deliberate intent behind this.

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