The Modi regime cannot deny it anymore. A detailed investigative report in the New York Times confirms that on a trip PM Modi made to Israel in 2017, his government bought Israeli spyware Pegasus as part of a $2-billion package for weapons including a missile system. It has already been established that Pegasus software was used to target a huge number of Indian opposition leaders, civil liberties activists, judges, an Election Commission head, and journalists. Since the Modi Government bought the software, it means that it is the government that has used this spying software against its citizens. Such use of the software is a crime – because the Government has hidden the purchase from citizens, and has selected targets to serve the political interests of the leaders of the regime. The software was used even to spy on a young woman who had made a sexual harassment complaint against the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Ranjan Gogoi, who is now a ruling party nominee in the upper house of Parliament.

The NYT report notes that relations between India and Israel are traditionally frosty because of India’s longstanding support for Palestine. It notes that “The Modi visit, however, was notably cordial, complete with a carefully staged moment of him and Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu walking together barefoot on a local beach. They had reason for the warm feelings. Their countries had agreed on the sale of a package of sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear worth roughly $2 billion — with Pegasus and a missile system as the centerpieces.”    

It is clear that this deal also affected India’s foreign policy. In other words, Modi bought Pegasus to serve his own party’s political interests and in return, mortgaged India’s foreign policy to serve Israel’s interests rather than India’s independent policies. The NYT noted that following Modi’s Israel visit, Israeli PM Netanyahu “made a rare state visit to India” and in June 2019 “India voted in support of Israel at the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council to deny observer status to a Palestinian human rights organization, a first for the nation.”

The secret purchase of Pegasus software to undermine India’s democracy by hacking the smartphones of a Chief Election Commissioner, a judge, journalists and opposition leaders and their family members is a crime for which the Modi Government ought to fall.