It will be a complete waste of Parliament’s time if the reported recovery of listening devices from Union minister Nitin Gadkari’s house holds it in thrall for any length of time. This “eavesdropping” appears to be most mysterious as the minister himself claims no such devices were found, and the newspaper exposé was “highly speculative”. No governmental authority or intelligence agency knows anything, and only the political parties seem seized of the matter.
India has been at the receiving end of snooping by world powers, including America’s NSA, for a long time, and surely by now senior politicians and bureaucrats have learnt how to safeguard sensitive information and to keep their premises, data and knowledge secure. And if they cannot do so in this advanced technological age, it is either a sign of utter laziness or a total disregard of the need to protect their privacy.
As nothing came of similar incidents in the past, such as the reported bugging of the offices of former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and former defence minister A.K. Antony, one can safely predict that all we will hear of this episode will also be pure hot air. The two major political parties — the BJP and the Congress — are likely to shout themselves hoarse on a complete non-issue, while neglecting more serious matters. The sad truth is that as a nation we are so inept in guarding our secrets that we may as well leave these matters to an overwhelming sense of Indian fatalism.
