FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Politics in India is never without its customary mudslinging as personal vilification becomes the principal agenda in an election year, especially among middle-level leaders in almost every party. But the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls already looks set to top all others with skeletons tumbling out from the most well-guarded closets across the land.
While Arvind Kejriwal is fending off attacks from his former mascot Anna Hazare, and a long-settled rape allegation is being raked up against BJP’s Delhi chief ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan, the biggest scandal that has rocked the nation is the allegation that the Gujarat government spied on a woman architect at the behest of former state home minister Amit Shah, who in turn was acting on behalf of an unnamed “saheb” with a personal interest in her. Since Shah has close ties with the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, and continues to be an important general in Uttar Pradesh, the innuendo about the identity of this “saheb” is self-explanatory.
There is nothing more subversive to democratic institutions than the use of state machinery to spy on private citizens without due legal process especially when there is no apparent security threat. The story of relentless and meticulous surveillance on the woman in August and September of 2009, broken by two investigative websites, reveals a very sordid tale of abuse of state power for dubious reasons. This is based on the reported testimony and taped conversations of a Gujarat IPS officer, G.L. Singhal, who was allegedly involved in the operation. The tapes reveal that Shah allegedly asked Singhal to spy on then Bhavnagar municipal commissioner Pradeep Sharma, a 1984-batch officer, who was suspended from the IAS for alleged irregularity in land allotment to private firms in Kutch in 2008 and also supposed to have had a liaison with this woman. The case gets curiouser when this is combined with the fact that it is the same Singhal who is an accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case and is currently out on bail. His testimony in that case also implicated Shah.
The snooping charges have hit at the heart of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign because it puts him and his key lieutenant in poor light. It has BJP on the backfoot, especially when the party’s responses to the allegations have been weak and unconvincing. They have described the report as a “dirty trick” on the part of the Congress; they have neither been able to deny that such an operation was conducted nor explain why it was needed. Whatever the motive behind the report, it raises pertinent questions for Shah and Modi to answer. But both of them have strangely chosen to remain silent, which has only added fuel to the fire.
Our cover story traces the genesis of the snooping scandal, looking at the cast of characters and the modus operandi while analysing its political ramifications in this murky election season. Indications from both Congress and BJP are that the campaign will get even more bitter over the next few months. There is already talk that the ruling party is planning more personal attacks against Modi, and that the BJP has activated its own ‘dirty tricks’ department to dig dirt on Rahul Gandhi and raise the pitch on the allegations against his brother-in-law Robert Vadra.
Although these personal allegations, if proven to be true, may reveal hitherto unknown sides of the main candidates, the unfortunate casualty of this kind of slugfest is that real issues like governance, corruption and development will be ignored. That will be an insult to our electorate and to our democracy.