Eminent journalist, writer, and filmmaker Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, in an interview with Northeast Now (Assamese and video) editor-in-chief Paresh Malakar, discussed allegations of the government’s alleged use of Israeli software Pegasus for snooping.
Guha’s interview preceded the Supreme Court hearing of the case, scheduled for April 22, 2025.
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Edited excerpts:
Paresh Malakar: First, I’d like to get an overview of the Pegasus issue so that our viewers can understand what it’s all about and its significance. Why is it being discussed so much?
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta: Thank you so much, Paresh Malakar, and thank you to all the viewers of Northeast Now for inviting me to this program.
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Pegasus is the name of a mythical winged horse from Greek mythology. However, Pegasus is also the name of the most dangerous spyware known to humankind so far. It was developed by an Israel-based group called NSO, the initials of its founders.
What’s absolutely unique and unprecedented about this software, or spyware, is that the person whose phone is compromised won’t know it. It’s not like you have to click on something for the malware to enter your phone. No.
It enters a user’s phone without their knowledge. Once it’s in, someone else can listen to everything you’re saying, view all your messages, photographs, and videos, and read everything – all the text, audio, and video – without you even knowing.
Over the past several years, this spyware, which is supposed to be sold only to government agencies for law enforcement purposes, has been misused.
The manufacturers of Pegasus, the NSO Group, claim it’s used to catch drug traffickers, pedophiles, and detect drone intrusions. They say it can even help locate people trapped under rubble after a building collapse by finding their phone.
So, the NSO Group claims that Pegasus software is meant for law enforcement. But there’s now a lot of evidence showing that this Pegasus spyware is being misused to target journalists (including myself, and perhaps you), lawyers, judges, social activists, particularly human rights activists, government officials, and so on.
There’s evidence that this spyware was used to target the phones of the heads of government of France, President Emmanuel Macron, and the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, among others. Several cases have been discovered.
How was all this found out? In June and July 2021, information was released by two international organizations. The first is a Paris-based international non-governmental organization called Forbidden Stories.
They partnered with Amnesty International, and the phones of individuals whose phones were allegedly infected by Pegasus were examined in Toronto, Canada, by a laboratory called Citizen Lab, which is used by law enforcement agencies worldwide.
It’s one of the world’s best-known forensic analysis labs for phone data. I’ll give you specific examples of what has happened, but the main point is this: Forbidden Stories in Paris received a leak of 50,000 phone numbers from different countries across the world.
This information was shared in secrecy with over 80 journalists in 17 media organizations globally. In India, for instance, their partner was The Wire. These numbers were just numbers, but you could tell which country they came from.
So, these journalists were asked to find out who these numbers belonged to, and they discovered they belonged to important political opponents, journalists, and lawyers. I’ll name some of them as our discussion continues.
What’s truly amazing, and I want to emphasize this to you and your viewers, is how the government of India remains in complete denial. We’ll have to wait and see what happens after April 22, when Justice Surya Kant of the Supreme Court of India begins hearing this matter.
It was supposed to be heard earlier, but there were several petitioners, and not everyone was named, so all the names are now together. I’m also one of the petitioners. So, that’s the story in a nutshell.
This software, this spyware called Pegasus, may be used for legitimate law enforcement purposes to capture terrorists, drug dealers, and pedophiles, but it’s also being misused to target those critical of the ruling government in New Delhi.
This includes political opponents, people from different political parties, as well as journalists, lawyers, judges, government officials, activists, and so on.
How does this spyware undermine democracy and individual privacy? Secondly, why does the Indian government remain in denial despite significant evidence?
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta: Alright. That’s a very important question. But before I answer it, let me give you some names and examples of what has happened and why this is so dangerous – so dangerous for humanity, so dangerous for democracy across the world.
It was found that Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post and an occasional critic of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia, was killed.
His body was found in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, and it was reportedly cut into pieces.
Can you imagine how gruesome? One man’s body was cut into pieces and buried in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. And it was found that his fiancée and lawyers all had their phones tapped. There was also a case of a princess from the UAE (United Arab Emirates) whose phone was tapped.
Let me give you another shocking example. Two journalists from Mexico, Cecilia Pineda and Regina Martinez, were investigative journalists reportedly investigating the nexus between drug dealers, drug cartels, and government officials.
They died unnatural deaths, and Pegasus was allegedly used to infiltrate their phones. Let me give you some names in India.
Among the phones allegedly compromised or infected by Pegasus in India are those of the present leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and his associates and aides. It includes the nephew of the Chief Minister of Bengal, Mamata Banerjee; the former election commissioner of India, Ashok Lavasa; a scientist and researcher, Gagandeep Kang, who took a very critical position against the government’s COVID program; and an aide of Mukul Rohatgi, the former Attorney General of India.
It also includes the staff of a former judge of the Supreme Court of India, Justice Arun Kumar Mishra, among others. Journalists Siddharth Varadarajan, J. Gopikrishnan, myself, S.N.M. Abdi (a journalist who remains in jail as we speak in Jharkhand), and Rupesh.
I have a long list of all the journalists. Now, what happened in India? Let’s quickly look. The former Chief Justice of India, Justice N.V. Ramana, asked a straight question to Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General of India, saying, “Has any agency of the government of India purchased this software?” All it required was a “yes” or “no” answer. But Tushar Mehta said, “I cannot answer your question because this will compromise the national security of this country.” It’s amazing, amazing, in open court! This is a top law officer of the government of India talking to the Chief Justice of India, the senior-most judge in India. Can you imagine? So, what happened after that?
All this was happening, and then in October 2021, Justice Ramana set up a committee. It took some time, but he set it up. This committee was headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court of India, a retired judge called R.V. Ravindran.
The two other members were Alok Joshi, the former director of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency, and Sandeep Oberoi, an industry expert who is a member of various international committees. There was also a technical committee.
That included Naveen Choudhary from the National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar, Gujarat; Dr. Prabaharan Poornachandran, a professor at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Kerala; and Professor Ashwin Anil Gumaste of IIT Mumbai. These last three formed the technical committee. Now, what happened?
They presented a report in three parts, three voluminous reports, in August 2022, about two and a half years ago. On the day before he retired, Justice Ramana said in open court that the government had not cooperated with the committees.
He stated in open court that the mere invocation of national security does not make the court a mute spectator. Those were his words. They said 29 phones had been examined, and five had malware, but they couldn’t state what kind of malware, whether it was Pegasus or not. That’s what Pegasus is all about.
You don’t know what it is because it keeps changing its shape and form. Anyway, something very interesting happened. Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said in open court that some personal data would have to be redacted, and he showed the two thick volumes. There was also a thin third part of the report containing comments and observations, which he said could be made public.
But this was not made public. This is what the Chief Justice of India said in open court, but the report wasn’t released. It was put back in a sealed cover and became the property of the Secretary General of the Supreme Court of India. This is amazing! The story is amazing. Now, more than two and a half years have passed, and we are waiting and watching what will happen and what will not. Several things have happened.
Paresh Malakar, I can answer your question about the law and what it means for democracy. But if you give me a few more minutes, I’ll tell you what’s happening in other parts of the world.
Please, please continue.
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta: You see, way back in 2019, a lawsuit was filed by WhatsApp Incorporated, which is part of the Meta Group. This was filed before a court in California, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge Phyllis Hamilton.
She heard this case from 2019 for almost five years.
On December 20, 2024, Judge Hamilton upheld the allegations of WhatsApp and said that the maker of Pegasus had violated a technical loophole and intruded into the phones of several people.11
A recent court document presented by WhatsApp on April 4th states that over 1,200 WhatsApp users in 51 different countries were infected in 2019.. The details are very interesting. The breakup: 456 in Mexico, followed by India with 54, Bahrain with 82 (a small country), Morocco with 69 (where WhatsApp has been used against opponents of the ruling monarch), Pakistan with 58, Indonesia with 54, and interestingly, Israel with 1,151.
The present head of the Israeli government, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his predecessor, Bennett, suspected that their own followers were being infected by WhatsApp. You see, this is something that has never happened before in the world.
Now, we have to wait and watch what happens on April 22 when the Supreme Court takes up the matter. Let me now answer the question you raised. We have a very old law in India, more than a century old, from British times – the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885.
It has been subsequently amended following Supreme Court cases. In 1997, there was an important Supreme Court case, PUCL vs. Union of India (People’s Union for Civil Liberties versus the Union of India). What did it say? Under certain circumstances, the government can legally tap your phone.
If it suspects national security is involved or there is some criminal activity, but the law is clear: the government has to be authorized at the highest level – the Home Secretary of the Union government or the Home Secretary of the individual states. It can only be done for a limited period, and everything has to be in writing.
So, the question I’ve raised before the Supreme Court is: when my phone was infiltrated, compromised by Pegasus, was it done in a legally authorized manner? Privacy, the right to privacy, is a fundamental right of every citizen. It’s not a question of someone listening in to my wife asking me what lentils I’d like – chana dal or urd dal. No, no.
They want to know my sources. They asked me that in May 2018, when they discovered traces of malware on my phone, “What were you working on?” And I said I was working on a book called The Real Face of Facebook in India.
I wrote that book, and it’s available in English, Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali. I was also working on an article, and your readers should please read it. It was called “Carving up a Business Empire Through Tax Havens: Ambani Style.”
This was a long article that discussed what happened to the assets of the late Dhirubhai Ambani, which were located outside India in different tax havens. And I asked what the government of India, the Income Tax Department, was doing. Were they investigating it? I had all the details, the bank numbers.
I wrote to Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, and the corporate communications head. I emailed them a questionnaire, saying, “This is the information we have. If anything is wrong, please correct us. Please answer our questions.” We put out charts, tables, and flow charts to show how the money moved. What happened? They didn’t get back to us. Abir Dasgupta and I wrote this article. Your readers can still read it: “Carving up a Business Empire Through That Area.” Where did it appear?
It appeared in May 2018 on the Newsclick portal. So, why did they use Pegasus? Were they – and I request you to send me that link if you can; I will definitely send it to you after our recording – the question was simple: were they tapping my phone to find out who had leaked this information to me? Who?
Was it someone in the government? Was it someone else? My facts were 100% correct. So, they were using Pegasus to find out my source.
Therefore, the use of Pegasus not only violates your privacy and secrecy, but for a journalist, it compromises their sources, and thus it is very bad for democracy in India and the world.
You’ve said so many shocking and revealing things! How can the government, how can we all be so unconcerned? How can we be sitting idle in the face of such revelations?
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta: That’s a good question, Paresh Babu. Through this program, let people become aware. Is privacy an issue? Does it concern ordinary people? Yes. Telephones have been tapped in India for a long, long time. There have been spies all over the world from time immemorial.
But today’s technology, today’s modern information technology, where a mobile phone has become a part of a human being’s body – we are addicted to that gadget. We wake up in the morning and look at it; we go to sleep while looking at it. Out of over 8 billion people on this planet, 6 billion have used the internet at some point. In India, we have 1.4 billion people, and according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there are over 1.15 billion SIM subscribers.
This means that in most parts of India, there are more SIMs than human beings. This is the new India and the new world, where those in positions of power and authority have the money to get into your phone and find out everything.
People are using Signal, but we’ve seen that even WhatsApp can be compromised. What do I do? If I don’t want others to hear what I’m doing, I put my phone next to music right in front of the speaker, or I leave my phone somewhere and detoxify myself. I’ll go for a walk in a park and talk to that person. This is the only way I can protect myself and my sources.
People have become scared. Even so, many journalists whose names appeared in that list were unwilling to have their phones forensically examined. In an earlier program of yours, Paresh Babu, you know how we talked about the Newsclick episode.
On October 3, 2023, more than 400 police personnel were summoned to the office of the special cell of the Delhi Police at 3:00 in the morning. They visited the homes of over 80 individuals in the National Capital Region. For the first time in India, something like this happened at 6:30 in the morning. During the Emergency, it was called the midnight knock; this is the morning alarm service.
For the first time in India, over 600 personal electronic devices – mobile phones, laptops, hard drives, pen drives – were seized. There are no rules. Even though the Supreme Court has asked the Delhi Police to frame some guidelines and rules, we are still waiting. So, this is a complete violation. You know, what’s happening at your portal, Northeast Now? You write an article, and you are served a legal notice. Yes.
So, now my question is, when I was listening to you, and I’ve been with Northeast Now for the last three years, and I’ve interviewed many people on many things, but this interview with you is shocking and revealing. The kind of things we’ve discussed and you’ve revealed here today…
I don’t know, I don’t have the language to express my reaction today. We call technology, information technology, the elevator of freedom, promoting liberty and individual freedom. Now, where is your individual freedom? Where is your privacy? Nothing.
This software, this technology, has, I must say, not only invaded our minds but also… where do we exist? What do you do? How do you…? Sir, you fight against it. You tell the people, you point out how technology is being used and misused.
How it has become a weapon (hathiyar). It has become a weapon misused by those in power against journalists, against anybody and everybody who asks questions. You’re seeing what’s happening in your state in Assam. A young journalist raises some questions and is put behind bars.
You are doing your duty. Yes. And now, another thing is that you have actually developed very sophisticated software that can be used for positive purposes.
But then, there must be stringent laws and legal protection to ensure these are not used unauthorizedly. Regarding what you were saying about the Telegraph Act of 1885…
You’ve discovered, you’ve invented some software, very good, very powerful, no problem. But why use it as a weapon of domination and control instead of elevating democracy and our individual personal freedom? So, I must say that whatever you’ve said today is shocking, very shocking, and you’ve said everything with so much involvement. I’m sure the people watching this discussion will understand how our privacy and freedom are being compromised.
And I personally would like to write an elaborate piece on this so that these things are on record for people to refer back to. That’s very important. You know, if I can suggest one or two things, firstly, there’s a book.
I’ll give you the names of three books, and I strongly recommend that your viewers take a look. One is by an American scholar, Dr. Shoshana Zuboff. (Looks for the book) I’ll give you the exact title. It’s all available. Her name is Professor Shoshana Zuboff, and the title is The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.
Yes, Surveillance Capitalism, I have that.
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta: The subtitle is The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. That’s one book.
Then there’s a book by two French journalists who used to work with Forbidden Stories, Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud. It came out in 2023 and is called Pegasus: The Story of the World’s Most Dangerous Spyware. And also, I suggest that Netflix subscribers watch a long documentary film called The Social Dilemma.