(Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development and the former UN Under-Secretary-General. He has written 15 books, including, most recently, India Shastra: Reflections On the Nation in Our Time.)
On March 2, 2015, Assistant Sub-Inspector Shamsher Singh of the Special Branch of Delhi Police Headquarters was found sniffing around the Tughlak Lane residence of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi, asking inane and suspicious questions. Confronted by the Special Protection Group (SPG), which protects the premises and the staff of Rahul Gandhi, to whom he was taken by the SPG, he produced a questionnaire he was carrying. This required him to obtain various particulars about Rahul Gandhi like the colour of his hair and eyes, birth marks, any disabilities or preferences, the type of clothes he wears, his shoes, photographs, and the names, addresses and phone numbers of his associates.
On the 12th, a beat constable came by the house, and on the 14th, two police officers, an Additional DCP and an ACP, again visited the residence of Rahul Gandhi at 12, Tughlak Lane, New Delhi. They spent about seven minutes at the residence enquiring about the whereabouts of various Gandhi aides.
The Congress Party erupted in indignation at these developments, alleging that this was a misuse of the Delhi Police personnel by the government to obtain personal information about a prominent political opponent. Given that not long ago, the "Snoopgate" scandal involved a brazen misuse of Gujarat state machinery for the surveillance of the movements of a private citizen, a young woman, the Congress' fear was that the same process might be at work at the Centre.
The party dubbed the affair "Snoopgate2" and demanded an explanation from the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. After all, Rahul Gandhi is protected by the SPG, and has been since his childhood; why would the Delhi Police need such information about an SPG protectee, and if for some innocent reason it did, why not just ask the SPG? And why did the Police need the telephone numbers and addresses of Shri Gandhi's associates and friends?
Faced with this controversy, the Delhi Commissioner of Police, Bhim Sain Bassi, held a press conference to state that this was a routine enquiry; a beat constable had gone not only to the residence of Rahul Gandhi but also to the residences of Veerappa Moily, PC Chacko and other political leaders. The Police Commissioner argued that the information being sought was to prevent spontaneous demonstrations at the Congress leader's residence, to ensure his security and the maintenance of law and order. The Commissioner of Police explained that various vulnerable persons are not easily identified by police officers, and it is for this reason that photographs and other descriptive details were being sought. He averred that there was no pressure from the Prime Minister or the Union government to spy upon Rahul Gandhi.
This seemed reasonable enough on the face of it, except for a few inconvenient details. The beat constable's routine security visit to the homes of various political leaders was on March 12, the Shamsher Singh episode was on March 2. The Congress stressed it objects to the latter, not the former. Why conflate a routine visit on the 12th with a suspicious episode on the 2nd, if not to confuse and mislead the press? And can anyone seriously suggest in the Information Age that any sentient Delhi policeman would have difficulty identifying Rahul Gandhi without details of his hair, eyes and birthmarks?
That was not all. "If spontaneous demonstrations against Shri Rahul Gandhi or other VIPs are to be prevented by police," the Party pointed out, "information must be collected regarding those persons or organizations who are likely to conduct such demonstrations", not about Rahul Gandhi and his friends. In any case, what is the logic or rationale of seeking information regarding his associates or the colour of Rahul Gandhi's hair or eyes, and how does such information help in stopping spontaneous demonstrations?
For the Commissioner of Police to suggest that the enquiries are being made for the "safety and security of vulnerable persons like Shri Rahul Gandhi" is, to put it mildly, inconsistent with the fact that he has been an SPG protectee for nearly twenty years and is protected under the SPG Act, which leaves no role for the Delhi Police in ensuring his security and safety. How can the Delhi Police justify its spying on Rahul Gandhi in the name of assessing the security of an individual for whose security it is neither responsible nor accountable?
The statement by the Commissioner of Police that similar information is being also sought in regard to Veerappa Moily, PC Chacko, other senior Congress leaders and senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani further raised Congress hackles: why is the Police collecting information about senior Congress and opposition leaders, and also of BJP leaders known to be opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi? In any event, both Veerappa Moily and PC Chacko have denied having received any security questionnaire from the Police, weakening the authorities' alibi even further.
When I issued a series of tweets raising just some of these questions, I received the inevitable invective-laden BJP backlash, but also some reasonable-minded criticism, along the following lines:
-- if it's true the police came openly to the house, why is this snooping?
Isn't objectionable surveillance supposed to be clandestine?
-- if it's true that the same pro forma has been given to other political leaders, including Congressmen like Moily or Chacko, why is this snooping?
-- how can the information sought be misused when it is so basic and routine?
The problem is that there were two different visits: one clandestine, one open; one as part of the routine work of the beat constable from the local police station, one from an ASI of the Special Branch. The former is fine, the latter objectionable. The ASI only revealed his questionnaire when confronted by the SPG and Rahul Gandhi's staff.
The proforma reportedly given to other leaders has not been received by the leaders named, but in any case that is not the issue. The issue is the ASI's snooping, not the overt proforma, even though that too is unnecessary for an SPG protectee (the SPG records all such details anyway and also tracks the protectee's movements). If it was routine information the Police were after, why not send the basic questions with a formal letter from the Commissioner of Police and ask Rahul Gandhi and his staff to fill it in? Why ask an ASI to sniff around the house making enquiries?
Finally, the question of how the information sought can be misused is best left to the imaginations of those seeking it. Far more important is the principle at stake. India is a democracy with a fragile tradition of respect for personal privacy. Surveillance, telephone-tapping, and interception of communications, are all-too-easily misused for political purposes that lie well beyond law and order or national security. While previous governments have been more or less respectful of individual privacy rights, the track record in Gujarat of the progenitors of the original Snoopgate is hardly reassuring. The Congress Party's concerns are therefore hardly overblown.
Intrusive surveillance of political leaders is something no law permits in India. As far as the Delhi Police is concerned, they should come clean and state under which law, and under the provisions of which clause, they have carried out this procedure of inquiry against Rahul Gandhi. To what purposes would the information being collected have been put? Would the names and addresses of all of the Congress Vice-President's associates and related information be then used to elicit further information about his whereabouts, location, visits, preferences and habits? To what end?
There are so many other issues in Delhi for the Police to be concerned about, from widespread incidents of rape and violence to the daily challenges of law and order. Surely the Delhi Police has better things to do than snooping on political leaders? But the issue goes beyond the Delhi Police, which, after all, is only following orders (though whose orders remains an open question, since the Home Minister himself seems unaware of the directive for the ASI's ill-advised expedition). It is the government that needs to explain why politicians' privacy is being invaded.
Our Constitution allows every Indian the right to disagree strongly with the Government without being intruded upon, subjected to surveillance and inquired about intrusively in this manner. That Rahul Gandhi leads the principal opposition party makes "Snoopgate2" that much worse, but it would be a matter of concern to the Congress Party even if he were just an ordinary citizen of India.
This is not just about Rahul Gandhi, but about all of us. It is time for the Government to come clean.
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