 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Poranjoy Gohatakurtha and with me here in the studio I have Pradyut Bora. Now the reason why I have called Pradyut Bora is not because he is currently an entrepreneur running a Gurgaon based start-up providing air purification. Air quality. Air quality services and equipment. The reason why I have called Pradyut to the studio of NewsClick is because I am going to ask him a few questions based on his earlier avatar as a founder of the Bharatiya Janta Party's information technology cell in 2007. He resigned from the BJP's National Executive in February 2015 as very, very strong views on what the IT cell of the BJP is currently doing. But before we discuss the subject Pradyut, I'd like to ask you a few questions about the 20th December statutory order of the Ministry of Home Affairs allowing eight agencies including the Intelligence Bureau, the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Enforcement Director. Ten. I stand corrected. I stand corrected. It includes the Directorate of Signal Intelligence which operates only in Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeast and Assam Commissioner Police, Delhi. Ten of these agencies are today empowered or sought to be empowered to intercept, monitor and decrypt any information in any computer including your mobile phone, your smart mobile phone. So India has become a surveillance state. Big brother is watching you. You know, one would have been a little circumspect to draw such conclusions where it only this order of the Ministry of Home Affairs. But going by the way, the government has kind of harassed or intimidated media in the last four years, the way the government has used the police and these agencies, these government agencies to go after specific individuals who are all critical of the Narendra Modi government. Absolutely, who are all critical of the government and the Prime Minister. So looking at this entire trajectory, one gets the sense that this is a natural corollary to what was already happening. Pradyut, this statutory order of the Ministry of Home Affairs, according to the government, according to the Home Ministry, there's nothing new. It is merely, it's an old order, no new powers have been conferred on to any of these ten agencies. And essentially what they are claiming is that the internet service providers, the telecom service providers and the intermediaries, this notification codifies the existing orders and in each and every case of interception, monitoring, decryption, the competent authority. In Delhi, it's the Home Secretary and different state governments and different persons. So there are, according to the government, adequate safeguards. What are your views? Absolutely not. Absolutely, Bankam. Couple of things. First, if we already had adequate legislation, adequate legal infrastructure in place, why have a new order and that to just about six months before the election, four months before the election? Yes, that's right. First, number one. Number two, time and again the courts had to intervene again and again to, you know, to speak about privacy, to explain privacy. And the courts have been very strong on their comments on privacy issues and fundamental rights. I mean, it's been categorically stated that the right to privacy is a fundamental right of every citizen. Now, in that particular case, the first steps of the government should have been to come out with a data protection legislation. And following the data protection legislation. That is still in the pipeline. So without having adequate data protection legislation to come out with an order like this and more importantly, more than the substance of the order is the signal it kind of sends out. At the time it has been sent out. At the time it has been sent out. So I think the one mustn't forget the optics, you know, the signals that have been kind of sent out that should you not behave, should you not, you know, do whatever the government or the past to be want. This is going to be, you know, the government is going to come. So it's not just that big brother is watching you and if big brother doesn't like what you're writing or putting on your computer, then big brother will take action against you. Absolutely. Absolutely. It is just a reinforcement. It's a reinforcement of the government's, you know, vindictive attitude which has been going on for the last couple of years. Perhaps it's not a coincidence, but the day after this home ministry statutory order or notification was issued on the 21st of December, a five page set of draft rules were discussed. In the ministry of electronics and information technology with representatives of Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, Sharechat, the Internet Service Providers Association of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India. And there were also present representatives of the Cyber Law Division of the Government of India. Now, there's so-called confidential meeting following that these draft rules were made public. It's now available in the open and anybody can respond to it by the 7th of January. But many believe that these changes that have been proposed in the information technology intermediaries, guidelines, rules to, I quote, deploy technology-based automated tools or appropriate mechanisms for proactively identifying or removing or disabling access to unlawful information or content. Now, government says, you know, there's so much fake news on WhatsApp. There have been mob lynchings and people like you and people like me have been complaining. So this is our way of ensuring that these social media platforms that provide end-to-end encryption are held accountable. The other impression is that we are actually moving back in time from the 2015 Shreya single case where the Supreme Court repealed and struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act on the ground that it was arbitrary and against the Constitution, the fundamental rights of citizens in the Constitution, your views. Well, you know, I'll take a step back from both this recent order and this entire discussion about information technology and privacy. I'll take a step back and go to the entire theory of social contract. We as citizens, we are perfectly fine about giving up a bit of our rights, giving up a bit of our privacy in the interest of national security. If the state can ensure safety and security to all its citizens, there's absolutely no harm giving up a bit of our right to privacy. So to that extent it's kind of fine. The problems come in when the government does not communicate about the limits of surveillance, when the government does not communicate enough about intention, when the government's actions are diametrically opposite to what it professes. No pre-legislative consultations before you put out these draft rules. Absolutely. No pre-legislative consultations. Even if you drafted something arbitrarily without taking public views into account, no checks and balances, right? So in that particular case, I mean why should we as a citizen feel comfortable enough about the government taking this big brother approach? So, you know, the government, the most natural thing for the government is to speak about national security. You turn left, they speak about national security. You turn right, they speak about national security. Now there's bokeh of national security. Rajta suraksha. Rajta suraksha. In danger. In danger. In danger. Now for this, for five years, we have been hearing this spiel of the prime minister. Now the point is, we all understand what Khatra is. We all are concerned citizens. We all want us safe and secure India, right? But at the same time, this is not at the cost of privileging one political party or one ideology over everything else. I want to ask you here a question. You were one of the first, perhaps the first graduates of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to join the Bharti Janta Party. And you had great admiration for the then prime minister of India, the recently deceased Shri Atal Bihari, Vajpayee. Absolutely. And Rajnath Singh Ji, who is now our Home Minister, he actively encouraged you to not just found an information technology sell in 2007. And this was mind you. Just a year after Facebook had been launched and Twitter had been launched. Yes, absolutely. And the whole idea from what you yourself have said, the idea was to use. This is the national politics of the country. And the common people of the country, you tried to take them as close as possible. But today, the social media sell of the Bharti Janta Party has become. What do you want to say about it? I think the BGP social media sell has undergone the same transformation that SEMI, the students Islamic movement of India has undergone. To the best of my knowledge, what I have kind of read in popular media, this was not the objective. Today SEMI is of course a terrorist and a pro... Proclaimed as a band organization. But to the best of my knowledge, this was not why the SEMI was formed. It was formed as a popular student movement to uplift the community, to make their youth dynamic and so on and so forth. And I believe the founder of SEMI today is sitting in the United States. He is a professor of mass communication. And the organization he gave birth to today has become a band organization. What do you want to say? The monster of Frankenstein. The monster of Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein was a good man. But the monster of the monster came in 80 months. So similarly, I think the IT cell was born with very, very noble intentions. It was born during the course of a journey that Mr. Rajnath Singh and I were taking together between Kanpur and Lucknow. And he happened to ask me... You have talked a lot about that journey for two hours. Yes. And he says that, Pradhyu Ji, tell me one thing that we should do in a party that we are not doing yet. And I said information technology. Suddenly a bulb, you know, lit up in my head and I said IT. He said, why? We are not a company. So I said, Sir, I am a management chapter. And we were taught that it is far cheaper and far cost effective and easier to retain a customer than to get a new customer. So for the corporate sector, CRM can be the best. CRM means customer relationship management. So for political parties, why not VRM, voter relationship management? And Mr. Rajnath Singh... He likes it a lot. So from VRM, you are doing a very dangerous... What did you say? Tulli. Tullna kar rahe. Ki Bharti Janta Parti ka jo sujna prayukti IT cell ke saath aap semi ke saath Tullna kar rahe. I mean, I am just giving you the kind of transformation it has undergone. Right? Of course Bharti Janta Parti IT cell is not a banned organization. It is not a prescribed organization. It is the Uber nationalist platform as they would like to say. But what I like to say is this is not why the IT cell was created. The IT cell was created with a very, very noble intention to reach out to the public because that is what information technology facilitated. Now, in February 2015, after the Narendra Modi government had come to power in May of 2014, you chose to resign from the Bharti Janta Party's national executive. You said that you did not wish to go along with the party with which you joined. There are very few IIM Amitabhath graduates who joined a political party in the way you did and you found that you couldn't support or endorse. The whole chain of people who were taking different decisions, the way the party was going forward, that you couldn't endorse the individualized and centralized style of decision making of Shri Narendra Modi and Shri Amit Shah. Is that the only reason why you quit? Well, that was the primary reason. You know, when I joined the BJP sometime in September, October 2004, I think within a month or so, I attended a training program and the first lesson that was given in the training program was the president presides, the team decides. So, that was the culture of the BJP we were told. The team decides and the president presides. And then, after the team decides, the president will go with the team. And not opposite? Not opposite. I mean, I'll give you tens of examples to do that. You know that Vajpayee Musharraf summit in Agra, I think to the best of my understanding, they were fairly close to a deal or they were fairly, you know, close to an agreement on many things. But the team kind of opposed it and therefore the summit didn't happen. Then Mr. Vajpayee wanted to fire Mr. Modi. After 2002? In 2002. But then the team kind of opposed it and the prime minister went along. So, there are tens of examples within the BJP we were given where we were clearly told that the president presides, the team decides. Now, from that kind of a party, and you know, during Mr. Vajpayee's tenure, I could see, you know, multiple times where he, you know, went by the decision of the team. Now, from that stage to being a party of one and a half leaders. You are using Arun Shuri's language. I am using Arun Shuri's language. He knows the party far more than I do. He has been with the party BJP far longer than I have. Pradhuji, you are sad that you are not in the party. You are using the language as you are using today. You are saying that today the IT cell, which you had established, the madness has gripped the BJP. It desires to win at any cost by any means. And you are saying that after 2014, the IT cell was economical with the truth. Today, fake news, fake news, fake news. You know, terrorizing people online. Absolutely, terrorizing people online. I mean, I would go to that extent. So, it's kind of massive, massive transformation. What I feel sad about is not so much the IT cell, you know, but the depth of the idealism with which I came to the BJP. Eleven years of my life, I gave to the party. And now you regret it? Yes, in a way. I mean, you know, I wouldn't have cared if the BJP had not come to power for maybe, you know, 20 years. But as long as it kind of adhered to a value system. I have a few more questions for you. You said that a lot of this work, the work of trolling, the wrong news, the false news, you know, it's not like you are misinformed. You know it's wrong to think. Still, you are destroying it. You are outsourcing this work because you don't want to leave behind any digital footprints or fingerprints. What's that? In 2009, this social media had a limited impact. But in 2014, it became peace. And today, in 2019, you are saying that this will be used widely, not just by the BJP but by all political parties. So, what do you think is going to happen in the next few months in the run-up to the elections? I think, first of all, there's going to be a huge amount of noise. Social media clutter or chatter is kind of going to increase and from all political parties. But there's a silver lining which I have just seen in this election and hopefully by the next general elections, 2024, it will be much in play. And that is the emergence of many sides track fake news and send out alerts. Today, we have quite a few of them. Alt news, Boom Live, SM Hooks there. There are many more. And even the mainstream organizations like Times of India and others, they are also setting up their own sort of fact-checking groups. I think this has been a huge transformation since 2014. 2014, whatever came on social media was taken as gospel truth by people, by the ordinary citizen. But today, many people have realized this phenomena of fake news. Many people therefore would be really circumspect before consuming any of the information that any of the political parties would be dishing out. Let me play devil's ad. What the BJP had been doing, now the Congress is doing. Others are doing. So, all fair in love and war, in elections. You are doing something wrong. You are doing something wrong. You are telling everyone. You are doing something wrong. So, this is actually bad for democracy, isn't it? This is bad for democracy. But I also see it as a maturing of the consumer, of the user, the citizen, in terms of the consumption of news. In the era of print, print was holy. I mean, whatever came in print, more or less kind of... So, there was some sanctity to it. Yes, there was a lot of Christianity. People had credibility. Absolutely. Today, we have moved from a print as the core, as the main form of media to digital. And I think a little bit of a maturing of the audience was required. And that, I see its emergence. It has not become a completely matured user of digital media. But I see, as I said, I see a silver lining to this dark club. Okay. Let me ask you a question. Me and a colleague of mine, Cyril Sam, we were writing this series of articles on Facebook. And Facebook's activities in India, we quoted you. And we asked you specifically how you reacted to a person like Shivnath Thakral, who's holding an important position in Facebook in India, given his background. Sure. NDTV, Television Anchor joins the SR group, supports a portal called Merabharosa, joins Carnegie Foundation, and then joins Facebook. And in our article 2, we talked about alleged conflicts of interest because an organization run by his wife and partner is also being financially supported by Facebook. How do you see a digital monopoly like Facebook? Which is not just Facebook, it also is WhatsApp, it's also Instagram. How do you see their role in the coming months leading up to the general elections? You know, I would have been very scared of someone like Facebook. I don't mean just Facebook, someone, a monopoly, a virtual monopoly like Facebook. A couple of years back. But you know, after the kind of scrutiny Facebook is going through in Europe. Across the world. Across the world, in the United States. I think they will be very, very careful about, you know, about letting their platform be used as a platform for mischief as far as the Indian elections are concerned because the payback could be very, very huge. Tomorrow there is a change in the government. India is a big market for them. They have got to be very, very careful. You think, as the economists claim that Facebook might go the yahoo way, that these digital monopolies should be broken up into smaller competing entities. Absolutely. The way Bell was. Bell was, Bell was. AT&T was, absolutely. Today, whether it's a Google, whether it's a Facebook, you know, they are, you know, Amazon, they are, you know, behemoths. They can move markets. They can influence people. They can influence outcomes. So I think globally there needs to be a greater scrutiny. And I'm very glad, particularly the European Union. They're putting, making them, you know, they're putting a real, real strong spotlight on their activities. So that is what gives me a little hope. Okay. My last question to you. What advice do you have to those who are viewing our conversation? Now, what advice will you give? You established the information technology cell, IT cell of the Indian People's Party in 2007. You left your party after eight years. Today, you are working against Prime Minister Modi. So the news in the social media, or wrong news, wrong thinking, people are spreading it. They spread it in villages. It's not just that in the city, some rich people can buy a mobile today. Yes, everyone has it. There are so many. There's a smart phone with 30 to 35 crores of people in India. It's a smart phone. What advice would you give them about what they get on WhatsApp, what they get on the social media? I think, you know, in today's day and age, nobody can be a passive consumer of news. I think it is, you know, citizenship is not the once in a five year, you know, vote giving, you know, activity. Citizenship requires far more engagement with the processes of the state. And to be aware of the processes of the state, you need to be with the news. And with the news, you cannot consume it passively the way you did earlier. You need to bring in your own lens of scrutiny. You need to figure out that the news that you are getting, is it true? Is it correct? And what is behind the news? You need to have far more involvement with the news that you are consuming. That is what I would say. Don't take anything blindly. Thank you so much, Pradyut. Thank you. For coming to the studio of Newsclick and giving us your views. You've just heard and watched Pradyut Bora. He founded the Bharti Janta Party's Information Technology Cell in 2007. And today, he is a bitter critic of the party. And he warns all users of the social media to keep questioning, to be careful, to doubt the veracity of all the information that's widely disseminated on the social media. What he suggests is keep questioning.