'Arnabgate' undermines the Modi govt's national security narrative

In April 2009, the chief of counter-terrorism at the UK’s Metropolitan Police was held to have compromised an anti-terrorist operation because he was photographed alighting from his car with a document titled ‘Briefing Note: Operation Pathways’. Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was carrying it to a security briefing at the British prime minister’s residence, 10, Downing Street. Operation Pathways had to be brought forward and the careless police officer had to resign for this inadvertent disclosure.

Much worse has happened in India. Prima facie evidence suggests that operational intelligence about an impending military strike against Pakistan might have been shared with a journalist in advance by the Narendra Modi government or by people associated with it. Despite the gravity of the issue, there is radio silence from the government. No heads have rolled and no inquiry has been ordered.

A television news anchor and self-styled ultra-nationalist propagandist, Arnab Goswami, had prior knowledge of the impending military strike against Pakistan, and he shared it in a WhatsApp chat. He claimed “something big will happen” against Pakistan and that it would be “bigger than a normal strike”. He also said, “on Pakistan the government is confident of striking in a way that people will be elated”, and significantly added “exact words used”, clearly referring to a reliable source. Goswami has not denied the veracity of the WhatsApp chats filed by the Maharashtra police in court.

If Goswami leaked the operational intelligence on February 23, 2019, three days before India’s airstrike in Pakistan, for how long had he known about it? Whose “exact words” was he using? Could he have shared the information with others inimical to India’s interests? These questions should have been a matter of high-level investigation in any mature democracy by now.

The longer the government keeps quiet the more its national security narrative is likely to be undermined. The Balakot airstrikes against Pakistan had taken place mere weeks before the last general election. The campaign of the Modi government drew heavily on the air strike in seeking a re-election mandate on the grounds of protecting national interest and upholding national security.

Those privy to operational military intelligence are signatories to the Oath of Secrecy and are bound by the Official Secrets Act. The number of those in the government who had prior knowledge of the airstrike on Pakistan is not large – perhaps the members of the Cabinet Committee on Security, the President as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the Chief of Air Staff and the theatre commander of the Air Force, the Chief of the Army Staff, the National Security Advisor and one or two senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office. Goswami’s source can be prosecuted under Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act for communicating and disclosing secret information and Goswami for receiving such information and purveying it further. If it is an office bearer of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who informed Goswami about the impending attack based on his illegal knowledge of it, then he too can be prosecuted.

A quick investigation should have identified the culprit by now. However, no such investigation has been ordered and the leak itself has not been admitted by the government. Nor has the government reacted to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, who in the wake of media reports about Goswami’s chats, described India as a “rogue state” that had attacked Pakistan “to win an election in utter disregard for the consequences of destabilising the entire region”.

The government cannot feign ignorance of the allegations as Goswami’s chats celebrate the Pulwama terrorist strike, about which he says, “with this attack we have won like crazy”. This could lead to conspiracy theories about the Pulwama terrorist strike which resulted in the death of 40 security personnel.

It will be difficult for the government to ride out the political turbulence the issue will lead to in Parliament. Underlining the seriousness of the issue, the Congress party fielded former Defence Minister A K Anthony to take on the government on the leak. It has also demanded a “time-bound” investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the role of the persons involved in this breach of national security.

Arnab Goswami

The reasons for the government’s inaction on the subject can only be a matter of speculation. Arnab Goswami’s WhatsApp chats, which suggest that national security was potentially compromised by someone in the government or someone associated with it, have come from the mobile phone of the top executive of Broadcast Audience Research Council. They are part of the court records in a supplementary chargesheet filed by the Maharashtra Police in a case of fixing Television Rating Points (TRP) data to manipulate advertisers. However, the chat records from Goswami’s personal mobile phone seized by the police are not yet in the public domain. Potentially they could provide specific evidence against those who may have passed on sensitive information to him. 

The supplementary chargesheet in the TRP case is clearly an afterthought by the Uddhav Thackeray government and it must have had good advice to make it part of the court proceedings. There is no limitation on proceedings in a criminal case and therefore the charges filed against Goswami can stay alive in the legal process indefinitely. This means that the prosecution of Goswami, even if it is delayed during the tenure of the Modi government, can be revived any moment in his lifetime, by a future government.

Meanwhile, the issue may yet become a bargaining chip between the Shiv Sena-led alliance government in Maharashtra and the BJP government at the Centre. The political play, if any, is likely to continue side by side with the legal proceedings. Any political compromise can however only be over the details of information from Goswami’s mobile phone chats and messages which are not yet in the public domain.

Normally one would expect at least one resignation from the government and the end of Goswami’s journalistic career. That neither of these has happened points to the deep rot in India’s democracy. Twitter: bhartitis