Argument
An expert’s point of view on a current event.

India’s Watergate Moment

A journalist hacked by Pegasus says he will survive, but Indian democracy may not.

By , a lecturer at Yale University and a consulting editor with India’s Caravan magazine.
Workers protest Indian government’s spyware operation.
Workers protest Indian government’s spyware operation.
Workers in the Indian National Congress party protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged surveillance operation using Pegasus spyware in New Delhi on July 20. PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images

“Congratulations!” That was the most common message of support I received from friends and well-wishers after the July 18 news that my name was featured in a list of journalists whose cellphones had been targeted by the Israeli military-grade spyware Pegasus. I had known since June that I was on the list. My friend and colleague Siddharth Varadarajan, co-founder of India’s independent news portal The Wire—one of the 17 global media partners of this worldwide investigation—was somber when he first informed me. After I agreed to cooperate with the investigation, my device was checked by Amnesty International in early July. They found that my cellphone had been infiltrated by Pegasus as recently as a couple of days earlier.

The leaked data for the investigation, provided by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories, indicated that my cellphone was first placed on the snooping list in July 2018, when I was a deputy editor at The Indian Express newspaper. That year, I won the prestigious Ramnath Goenka award for excellence in journalism, awarded for my reporting on three major news stories: the sacking and replacement of the head of India’s premier federal investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation; the internal conflict and turmoil at the highest levels of India’s Supreme Court over allegations of corruption and induction of new judges; and the multibillion-dollar deal between India and France for Rafale fighter jets, where allegations of wrongdoing, cronyism, and overpricing had gained ground. The deal became a major issue in India’s 2019 national elections.