Author: T V R Shenoy
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: January 06, 2006
URL: http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jan/06flip.htm
Are the world's two largest democracies marching
in lock step? On December 16, 2005 The New York Times broke the story that
the US National Security Agency had been tapping gigantic swathes of the population.
Two weeks later, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mulayam Singh Yadav called a press conference to announce that 10, Janpath
had ordered Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh's phones to be tapped.
Call me biased but I was inclined to take
allegations by a newspaper a wee bit more seriously than a sensational announcement
by a politician. Until, that is, Ambika Soni came riding to her party chief's
rescue.
Congress General Secretary Soni was, to put
it mildly, utterly frivolous in her approach. 'What was the Samajwadi Party
afraid of?' she demanded sarcastically, going on to make some rather strained
connections to Amar Singh's friendship with various members of the Hindi film
fraternity. Was she just being supercilious, or did she really not get the
point?
The levity is unwarranted if only because
the same question can be raised against Ambika Soni's own party. Aniel Mathrani
was whisked away by government agents the moment he set foot in Delhi, without
being given a chance to speak to reporters outside the airport. Mathrani's
first reactions to the media came long after the Enforcement Directorate (and
possibly others) spent time with him. What was the Congress scared that he
might say?
Wire tapping is, except under certain specified
conditions, a crime. That brute fact needs to be pounded in until everyone
gets it. It doesn't matter to whom Amar Singh was talking. In fact, it doesn't
even matter that it was a senior politician's conversations that were being
monitored, it would be just as illegal if it were any citizen's phone.
That fact has been understood by the Delhi
Police if not by Ambika Soni and her ilk. The investigators have no hesitation
in saying that whatever happened was utterly illegal. But the Delhi police
have now been pushed into going farther than that bare admission of the facts;
investigators have admitted that someone 'very influential' was behind the
wire tap.
To date, however, they have fought shy of
naming that 'very influential' individual. In other words, we now possess
the concrete assurance of the Delhi police that the Samajwadi Party was correct
in its assertion.
This raises another troubling question. It
is not probable that Amar Singh was the only politician whose communication
were being monitored. I understand that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa
too now claims that her phones were also being tapped. Who else is being tapped?
The Delhi police got it right in claiming
that there is some 'very influential' person behind it all. Just look at the
sums of money that are involved. Bhupendra Kumar, the private detective, who
carried out the actual nuts and bolts operation on Amar Singh's phones, was
being paid Rs 5 lakh (Rs 500,000) every week for the job.
He had received at least half a crore (Rs
5 million) on the job before the scandal resulted in his arrest. How many
people are there who can put out that kind of money? Or many times more if
I am correct in assuming that Amar Singh was not the only man being tapped.
It all reminds of the sickness that infected
India thirty years ago, during the Emergency. Most Opposition leaders had,
of course, been thrust behind bars. That did not, however, prevent a paranoid
government from keeping an ear on every other group that seemed to be against
it -- judges, lawyers, journalists, and so on.
Even Congress ministers, the ones who were
judged too ambitious or too unreliable, might have been tapped. I recall one
such minister pulling me out into the garden where he could talk freely rather
than inside his ministerial bungalow. Are we going back to those plague-stricken
days?
Ambika Soni also wondered aloud why Mulayam
Singh Yadav had not bothered to fill out an First Information Report if he
was so concerned. The Delhi police had long since filed a case by the time
the Congress general secretary spoke but Soni's inability to keep up with
the news is not the point -- which is that Bhupendra Kumar had gone ahead
on the basis of some letters.
Mulayam Singh Yadav waved two letters before
the media. The first reaction from the Delhi police seemed to be that both
had been forged, today it seems that at least one of them might be genuine.
Why aren't those officers whose names were misused filing FIRs?
At the end of a week of confusion we can discern
some islands of clarity amidst a raging sea of confusion.
First, Amar Singh's phone was being tapped.
Second, the tap was illegal.
Third, some private detective was being paid
a crazy amount of money to do the job.
Fourth, the Delhi police admit that they have
a fair idea about the identity of the 'influential' person behind it all.
This is an outrageous assault on civil liberties.
Anyone and everyone who is responsible for it should be punished. Does the
Congress agree with that basic fact?
