Pegasus controversy, targets in India & what is tells us

For starters, Pegasus is a military Spyware developed by NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company which sells its spyware only to sovereig...

For starters, Pegasus is a military Spyware developed by NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company which sells its spyware only to sovereign countries with the permission of another sovereign state, which is Israel itself.

Very interestingly, most countries that have been exposed in the recent developments have a bad reputation for undermining civil liberties, targeting political rivals and have been ranked poorly in the EIU's democracy index 2021. Unfortunately, India happens to be one of them. (Note: India ranks 53^rd, and has the best ranking among countries allegedly exposed).

What’s more interesting is that whoever was using this in India was not just targeting adversaries but also their own. Prahlad Patel, Jalshakti minister and Ashwini Vaishnaw, Railways & IT minister in the current Modi Government were also on the list of targets in India. We all understand why someone would spy on their adversaries. But now, why do you target your own?  You target your own may be because you have some suspicion about them, or maybe you want to check somebody out? Or you may do it because you have concerns about somebody or you might do it because within your system you see somebody as your rival, a likely rival, or somebody who is not fully compliant. What this does is that it does not find criminality on the part of people and try them but instead, it will give you some information about people which you can use against them at the right time to comply with your wishes.

So does the aforementioned reasons tell us something about the party and the leadership? Is absolute power concentrated in the hands of one leader or just a few leaders?

Now, what's the most interesting part is that one cannot even say that some rogue element might have done it because NSO only sells to sovereign governments with the permission of the Israeli government.

- Michael Joachim Ganpat, Student Correspondent, Kolkata