The Indian Panorama

Tag: Hamid Ansari

  • The voice of a Gaza under occupation

    The voice of a Gaza under occupation

    • There may be merit in the claim from Gaza – of a knocking on every door and trying every path, for peace, rights and freedom, but to no avail

    “While Biden is right to support Israel, he must get clear answers from Netanyahu now, before it’s too late: Once Israel topples Hamas, who will govern Gaza? If Israel intends to govern Gaza, will it pay for the rebuilding of the infrastructure that it is destroying? And if not, who will? How long does Israel intend to allow the humanitarian crisis to unfold in southern Gaza? Does Israel plan to build settlements in Gaza? Does Israel respect Gaza’s borders? Does it have a plan to help rebuild the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank?”

    U.S. President Joe Biden was emphatic in his condemnation of Hamas for the responsibility of the hospital attack. Its timing is yet to be established and Professor Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies is of the opinion that the only way to convince those who do not take sides is to establish some form of international investigation that is led by nations or individuals who are credible.

    By Hamid Ansari

    While the conflict rages in Gaza amidst allegations and counter-allegations, and in the midst of unabashed American partiality, it is relevant to recall what the senior leader of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzouk, told The New Yorker magazine (October 13) about the political approach: “We rolled down all of the pathways to get some of our rights — not all of them. We knocked on the door of reconciliation and we weren’t allowed in. We knocked on the door of elections and we were deprived of them. We knocked on the door of a political document for the whole world — we said, ‘We want peace, but give us some of our rights’ — but they didn’t let us in.” He added, “We tried every path. We didn’t find one political path to take us out of this morass and free us from occupation… We spoke to the Americans, Europeans and all of the people in order to achieve the Palestinian people’s rights, without any benefit. Nothing has been achieved towards the idea of two states, from 1948 until today. We are a people under occupation.”

    Abu Marzouk added that in earlier conflicts, the Israelis waged wars outside their borders; “This is the first time that the Palestinians are crossing the borders and fighting in their historic land.” The conflict has shattered the aura of invincibility.

    Tel Aviv’s response
    The Israeli response to the Hamas attack has been to order the evacuation of the northern half of Gaza, to enforce it by a blockade, by the cutting off of food, water and electricity as also by the massing of 3,00,000 troops on Gaza’s border. The objective presumably is to occupy the northern zone and expand space for new settlements. The Palestinians see it as such and recall the manner in which the state of Israel came into existence on May 14, 1948 when 6,56,000 Arabs inhabited of the Mandate Territory of Palestine were made to flee by what the historian, Paul Johnson, called (History of the Jews, p.521) as ‘the scientific use of terror to break the will of liberal rulers’. Palestinians were thus made to pay for the genocide of Jews in Europe, which was committed by Germans, not Arabs.

    Nor should the ideological motivation, particularly of the present Israeli leadership, be overlooked. It has repeatedly equated the Palestinians with the Nazis who should be eliminated. This is a reiteration of what Vladimir Jabotinsky, a respected predecessor in right-wing Zionism said in 1923: Zionism ‘is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force.’ He predicted that the Palestinian will not leave his land unless confronted ‘by a wall of Jewish bayonets so that a new race, proud, generous and cruel, shall arise.’

    The reality of this perception has been reinforced by decades of connivance by world powers. Innumerable United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions have remained unimplemented. Each reiterated the earlier ones and some even indicated new goalposts; each sought to explain away the guilt of the culprits. Resolution 2334 of December 2016, for instance, outlawed all settlement activity and reiterated the desirability of implementing the two-state solution. A departure from the UNSC route was attempted in September 2020 by the Abraham Accords seeking, piously, to ‘end radicalization and conflict’ while ignoring the causes of both. An expectation of expanding the ambit of both has not materialized.

    No more invincible
    Israel’s objectives for the Gaza operation have been officially identified with precision: toppling Hamas and destroying its military capabilities; eliminating the threat of terrorism emanating from the Gaza strip; exerting maximum pressure to find a solution to the hostage issue, and defending the borders of the state and its citizens. These would require going into Gaza. Informed Arab columnists like Abdel Bari Atwan are of the opinion that the most recent fighting has deprived Israel of its two most effective weapons: its scariness and its deterrent power. Such a move, he says, would be more far reaching than Ehud Olmert’s foray and Ariel Sharon’s venture.

    The response of the United States and some of its allies to the present crisis raises the question of motivation. Did they know more about the chink in Israel’s armor? Did they apprehend the implications of conflict going beyond Gaza and its adverse impact on Israel?

    Pertinent questions
    The prognosis of Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times of October 16, 2023 sheds light on the prospects: “If Israel goes into Gaza now, it will blow up the Abraham Accords, further destabilize two of America’s most important allies (Egypt and Jordan) and make normalization with Saudi Arabia impossible — huge strategic setbacks. It will also enable Hamas to really fire up the West Bank and get a shepherd’s war going there between Jewish settlers and Palestinians. Altogether, it will play directly into Iran’s strategy of sucking Israel into imperial overstretch and in that way weakening the Jewish democracy from within.”

    Friedman adds: “While Biden is right to support Israel, he must get clear answers from Netanyahu now, before it’s too late: Once Israel topples Hamas, who will govern Gaza? If Israel intends to govern Gaza, will it pay for the rebuilding of the infrastructure that it is destroying? And if not, who will? How long does Israel intend to allow the humanitarian crisis to unfold in southern Gaza? Does Israel plan to build settlements in Gaza? Does Israel respect Gaza’s borders? Does it have a plan to help rebuild the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank?”

    U.S. President Joe Biden was emphatic in his condemnation of Hamas for the responsibility of the hospital attack. Its timing is yet to be established and Professor Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies is of the opinion that the only way to convince those who do not take sides is to establish some form of international investigation that is led by nations or individuals who are credible. Clearly, there may be merit in Abu Marzouk’s claim. Hasty resort to partiality may not be the option.

    (Hamid Ansari is a former Vice President of India)

  • Pegasus is India’s Watergate moment

    By Pranesh Prakash

    ‘In 2013, India’s current Home Minister was embroiled in a controversy dubbed “Snoopgate”, with phone recordings alleged to be of him speaking to the head of an anti-terrorism unit to conduct covert surveillance on a young architect and her family members without any legal basis. The Gujarat government admitted the surveillance, including phone tapping, but claimed it was done on the basis of a request made to the Chief Minister by the woman’s father. Yet, no order signed by the State’s Home Secretary — a legal necessity for a phone tap — was ever produced.”

    Intelligence gathering needs to be professionalized, parliamentary oversight introduced, and liberties and law protected

    “If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.” Those words of Sen. Frank Church, who led one of two committees on intelligence and surveillance reform established in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, are just as relevant in India today given the revelations of extensive surveillance — it is unclear by whom, but signs point to the Indian government — by the use of spyware on people’s phones. While there is much to be said about the international regulation of the unaccountable sale of spyware by shadowy entities such as the NSO Group, it is equally, if not more important to ensure that surveillance in India is made accountable.

    Go easy on the salt

    My former colleague, Sunil Abraham, often likens surveillance to salt. A small amount of surveillance is necessary for the health of the body politic, just as salt is for the body; in excess, both are dangerous. While one cannot enjoy the liberties provided under the Constitution without national security, we must equally remember that national security is not meaningful if it comes at the cost of the very liberties such security is supposed to allow us to enjoy. Excessive and unaccountable surveillance imperils privacy, freedom of thought, of speech, and has a chilling effect on people’s behavior, while shattering the bedrock of the rule of law upon which a constitutional liberal democracy is built.

    The government claims all its surveillance is authorized and justified. But then, the question arises: where are the prosecutions for terrorism, organized crime, espionage, etc., based on evidence from such surveillance? Who is ensuring that the surveillance is necessary and proportionate? Indeed, on the contrary, there are numerous examples of surveillance powers being misused for personal and political gain, and to harass opponents.

    Earlier examples

    In 2012 in Himachal Pradesh, the new government raided police agencies and recovered over a hundred thousand phone conversations of over a thousand people, mainly political members, and many senior police officials, including the Director General of Police (DGP), who is legally responsible for conducting phone taps in the State.

    In 2013, India’s current Home Minister was embroiled in a controversy dubbed “Snoopgate”, with phone recordings alleged to be of him speaking to the head of an anti-terrorism unit to conduct covert surveillance on a young architect and her family members without any legal basis. The Gujarat government admitted the surveillance, including phone tapping, but claimed it was done on the basis of a request made to the Chief Minister by the woman’s father. Yet, no order signed by the State’s Home Secretary — a legal necessity for a phone tap — was ever produced, and the Gujarat High Court shut down an inquiry into “Snoopgate” upon the request of the architect and her father, on the shocking basis that it “did not involve public interest”.

    In 2009, the United Progressive Alliance government swore in an affidavit in the Supreme Court that the CBDT had placed Niira Radia, a well-connected PR professional, under surveillance due to fears of her being a foreign spy. Yet, while they kept her under surveillance for 300 days, they did not prosecute her for espionage.

    Non-state actors such as the Essar group, have also been shown to engage in illegal surveillance. K.K. Paul, then the Governor of Meghalaya, noted complaints by telecom operators that private individuals were misusing police contacts to tap phone calls of “opponents in trade or estranged spouses”.

    There are dozens of such examples of unlawful surveillance which seem to be for political and personal gain and have nothing to do with national security or organized crime. Yet, there are few examples of people being held legally accountable for unlawful surveillance.

    The laws

    Currently, the laws authorizing interception and monitoring of communications are Section 92 of the CrPC (for call records, etc), Rule 419A of the Telegraph Rules, and the rules under Sections 69 and 69B of the IT Act. Indeed, it is unclear when the Telegraph Act applies and when the IT Act applies. A limited number of agencies are provided powers to intercept and monitor.

    In 2014, the Ministry of Home Affairs told Parliament that nine central agencies and the DGPs of all States and Delhi were empowered to conduct interception under the Indian Telegraph Act. In 2018, nine central agencies and one State agency were authorized to conduct intercepts under Section 69 of the IT Act. Yet, the Intelligence Organisations Act, which restricts the civil liberties of intelligence agency employees, only lists four agencies, while the RTI Act lists 22 agencies as “intelligence and security organisations established by the central government” that are exempt from the RTI Act. Thus, it is unclear which entities count as intelligence and security agencies.

    Further, a surveillance alphabet soup exists, with programmes such as CMS, TCIS, NETRA, CCTNS, and so on, none of which has been authorized by any statute, and thus fall short of the 2017 K.S. Puttaswamy judgment, which made it clear that any invasion of privacy could only be justified if it satisfied three tests: first, the restriction must be by law; second, it must be necessary (only if other means are not available) and proportionate (only as much as needed); and third, it must promote a legitimate state interest (e.g., national security).

    In 2010, then Vice-President Hamid Ansari called for a legislative basis for India’s agencies, and the creation of a standing committee of Parliament on intelligence to ensure that they remain accountable and respectful of civil liberties. In 2011, the Cabinet Secretary in a note on surveillance held that the Central Board of Direct Taxes having interception powers was a continuing violation of a 1975 Supreme Court judgment on the Telegraph Act. That same year, parliamentarian Manish Tewari introduced a private member’s Bill to bring intelligence agencies under a legislative framework. That Bill soon lapsed. In 2013, the Ministry of Defence-funded think-tank, the Institute for Defence and Strategic Analysis, published a report, “A Case for Intelligence Reforms in India”, a core recommendation of which was: “the intelligence agencies in India must be provided a legal framework for their existence and functioning; their functioning must be under Parliamentary oversight and scrutiny”.

    In 2018, the Srikrishna Committee on data protection noted that post the K.S. Puttaswamy judgment, most of India’s intelligence agencies are “potentially unconstitutional”, since they are not constituted under a statute passed by Parliament — the National Investigation Agency being an exception. In its 2019 election manifesto, the Indian National Congress — in what to my knowledge was a first for a national political party — called for parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies.

    Post-Watergate reforms

    The legacy of the Church Committee can be seen in the fact that the Snowden revelations in 2013 did not uncover any spying on Opposition politicians, journalists, judges, and human rights defenders for partisan political ends. What was shocking about the Snowden revelations was the extent of NSA’s surveillance, the overreach of the powers provided under the PATRIOT Act, as well as the lack of sufficient checks and balances provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Snowden revelations led to meaningful reform of that court, and controversial domestic surveillance provisions of the PATRIOT Act expired in 2020.

    We need such reforms in India, which are aimed at professionalizing intelligence gathering, bringing intelligence agencies under parliamentary oversight, making them non-partisan, and ensuring that civil liberties and rule of law are protected. This is India’s Watergate moment, and the Supreme Court and Parliament should seize it.

    (The author was a co-founder of the Centre for Internet and Society, and is an affiliated fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project)