BY INDER MALHOTRA
AS was only to be expected, the Union Home Minister, Mr P Chidambaram, barely audible in the midst of the Opposition’s loud protests in both houses of Parliament,

has emphatically denied that the United Progressive Alliance government authorised the tapping of mobile phone calls of its political opponents as well as of a Congress leader. He has also stated that after a thorough investigation the government had found that there was ‘no substance’ in the cover story of the newsmagazine ‘Outlook’ alleging large-scale misuse of its phone-tapping capacity by the National Technical Research Organisation. However, the Home Minister kept an escape hatch open when he said that if any proof of unauthorised ‘eavesdropping on political leaders’ was discovered, appropriate agencies would investigate it thoroughly.
It would have been better if the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh had made the statement on this sensitive subject. But he was busy receiving the Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai. Unfortunately, he chose to speak on the subject outside the House only to declare that there was no need for a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate either the alleged phone tapping or the IPL scandal. The BJP has accused him of breach of Parliamentary privilege.  
When Walls have Ears
However, what does the home minister’s explanation mean? One the one hand, the government claims complete innocence for itself, which may be accurate. But by implication it does concede that the NTRO–which, incidentally, is under the Prime Minister, not the Home Minister–may have listened to the conversations of political leaders and other citizens without being asked to do so. As Stalin once famously said, secret agencies of all countries were a law unto themselves. “My own secret agents,” he told Churchill, “do things that I get to know of several months later”. It is doubtful, however, that Indian intelligence agencies can afford to be brazenly defiant of the political authority. Therefore, Mr Chidambaram would have been well-advised frankly to tell the country that because of the highly advanced technology at its disposal, the NTRO sometimes overhears conversations it doesn’t intend to. Rotating interceptors, called ‘Eagles’, targeting areas in need of careful watch, pick up every phone call, fax or other communication within its range. What the agency does with the information thus gathered is a different matter.
Let me hasten to add that what the NTRO–formed around the communications intelligence apparatus of the foreign intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing, after the Kargil War, in accordance with the K Subrahmanyam Committee’s recommendations–is doing nothing miraculous. America’s National Security Agency has been in a position to monitor all communications across the world since soon after the Second World War. Britain’s GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters, and similar agencies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand have the same capability. Moreover, these five agencies work in tandem, evoking complaints from European countries that they are sharing not only information relating to security, terrorism and crime but also commercial secrets. It should therefore be obvious that almost every conversation over a mobile phone or any other communication channel is vulnerable, not only to agencies in this country but also abroad.
National Security
From the foregoing it does not follow that the citizens of India have no defence for their privacy or the powers that be can eavesdrop on their political opponents with impunity. Most certainly not! On the other hand in a country facing terrorism, both cross-border and indigenous, Maoist menace, other insurgencies, smuggling, organised crime and money laundering, intelligence agencies cannot be so bound down as to be made dysfunctional. There has to be a proper balance between the nation’s need for security and stability on one hand and the privacy of the innocent citizen and propriety in politics on the other. In all fairness and with much regret one must say: neither this country’s politico-administrative system nor its civic society is such as to be able to sustain the requisite balance the way mature democracies do.
Yet, it must be added that despite our relatively limited resources, the relevant agencies have given an excellent account of themselves. During the Kargil War, RAW tapped the phone call between General Musharraf in Beijing and his chief of general staff, General Aziz, in Islamabad which exposed the role of the Pakistan Army in what Pakistani propaganda was making out to be the work ‘entirely of the Mujahideen’. Even more valuable was the recording by the NTRO during 26/11 of the conversations between the terrorists attacking Mumbai’s five-star hotels and their handlers in Pakistan.
Organisations like the NTRO, RAW and Intelligence Bureau have a lot more to do to become more effective and cohesive. Similarly, the heavily criminalised political order has to cleanse itself. Otherwise, someone will have to monitor the phone calls of even ‘prominent’ politicians.
Complaints Not New
What follows is not at all a justification of any wrongdoing by any intelligence agency with or without the government’s approval. The idea is to underscore that complaints being voiced so angrily today are not new. Allegations of political opponents and even colleagues being under surveillance have been endemic in this country under all regimes over the last six decades. Nor are Western democracies wholly immune from this malaise.
Even in the time of the most liberal and democratic ruler of this country, Nehru, a cabinet colleague he liked, T T Krishnamachari, publicly complained that his phone was being tapped and he named the then Intelligence Czar, B N Mullik, as the culprit. Twelve years earlier, when bugging devices were rudimentary and scarce, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, a cabinet colleague totally trusted by Nehru and therefore entrusted with a delicate security mission, was confident, for good reason, that the formidable Sardar Patel would get his telephone tapped. He made no fuss. As communications minister he simply got the general telephone at the AICC office shifted to his residence.
There are many other such instances. But let me skip them and get to the era when the nadir was reached. Sadly, this happened when Rajiv Gandhi as PM got all the phones of President Giani Zail Singh tapped. Of course, Gianiji, a past master in political intrigue was then busy plotting Rajiv’s dismissal despite the PM’s four-fifths majority in the Lok Sabha.
In V P Singh’s time his rival, Chandra Shekhar, claimed that his phone was being tapped and V P’s short-lived government stoutly denied this. So did another prime minister with a brief tenure, Mr H D Deve Gowda, who was accused of snooping on several leaders, including former PM, P V Narasimha Rao. There are many more such examples, but they need not be cited.