Foreign Interference in elections: contrary to National Security Interests
Hardly the key issue of foreign interference in India’s current elections is debated today. Even a layman knows the significance of psy warfare that existed from times immemorial. Foreign actors carry out propaganda (disseminate disinformation) to influence elections outcomes. False narratives through new technologies are inciting political violence. Their interference violates the right to self-determination.
As per experts, democracy in itself is a fragile system, because it allows the divide within societies to show up front and center. So, foreign interference aims to exploit the societal fault lines to disintegrate modern India – contrary to national security interests.
The Internet has made it possible for an open exchange of tremendous amounts of information that would have been impossible a century ago. Cyber warfare, which is a type of information warfare, has become a major risk. It is playing a prominent role in elections worldwide and has had a great impact on people and their voting patterns. Foreign interference is nothing new in India.
Social media facilitates political mobilization. Today, social media “groups” are popular means to influence public opinion. Rallying support through social media has come to the forefront. Political consultants and analysts, dime a dozen, are using social media as an effective campaign tool to achieve partisan political ends. Ipso facto, foreign interference in elections through social media is real.
Most important to note that authoritarian governments such as China, Russia, and Iran have three key motivations to interfere in the 2024 election: to diminish the credibility of our democracy, engulf the country with internal issues, and shift our policy to favor their interests. Add to them, even other Western countries who view India’s growth projection with concern and anxiety contra their interests.
Social media groups include: WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and so on. Also, Chinese tech giants have promoted TikTok, ShareChat, Likee Video, Hypstar, and Injoy. The TikTok uses artificial intelligence (AI)-based algorithms to show content to users. Content on these platforms goes viral extremely quickly. Thus, rumors and fake news spread rapidly. Coordinated misinformation campaigns and hate speech are amplified as a result of these AI-based algorithms. By the time a piece of information can be verified, millions of people have already seen and reacted to it.
De Jure, elections are one of the most important aspects of a democracy, but they only work if citizens trust the process and the results. Inadequate electoral transparency laws and inaction by the Election Commission (EC) enable foreign actors to influence Indian elections without detection.
Foreign funding or secret money known as “dark money,” has been spent on Indian elections over the past “Seven Decades”. In the past, according to a declassified December 1985 CIA report, the Soviets pumped huge amounts of cash to influence Indian politicians, including a large number of Congress MPs during Indira Gandhi government, to influence Indian policies. As many as 40 per cent Congress MPs in (Indira) Gandhi's last government had received Soviet political contributions. This continued into the Rajiv Gandhi rule. The report notes that the Soviets funded opposition parties including the CPI and the CPI-M "through a combination of kickback schemes, normal business transactions and direct cash payments”.
Recently, the Indian news portal NewsClick is among organizations funded by a network tied to US millionaire Neville Roy Singham for pushing Chinese propaganda. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2021 searched NewsClick’s premises as part of a probe into foreign remittances allegedly received. Add to it, Indian police have formally accused Chinese Smartphone makers Xiaomi Corp and Vivo Mobile of helping transfer funds illegally to a news portal under investigation on charges of spreading Chinese propaganda, documents showed on Friday. A Xiaomi India spokesperson strongly denied the accusation.
During the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnataka, the global vice-president of the Open Society Foundation, funded by George Soros, was found accompanying Rahul Gandhi. What is extremely distressing is the link with the Islamic Circle of North America.
Next, Sam Pitroda, an American Citizen since long, has repeatedly interfered with internal politics of India to include: questioned the claims of casualties reported by the government during the Balakot airstrikes in 2019 in the aftermath of Pulwama terrorist attack; expressed “serious concerns about the sate of democracy recently after the inauguration of Ram Temple at Ayodhya; and so on.
Also, the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) claimed that pro-Khalistan Sikhs gave $16 million to Arvind Kejriwal. In a purported video, SFJ chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun claimed that Kejriwal had a meeting with them in Gurdwara Richmond Hills, New York, in 2014, where the AAP leader allegedly promised to release 1993 Delhi blast convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar in lieu of financial support. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on February 26, 2023 stated that Khalistan supporters were getting funding from Pakistan and other countries.
Add to them, Cambridge Analytic’s parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), a political consultancy firm, has a history of indulging in corrupt practices in different countries. The Cambridge Analytica scandal and the actions of SCL brought the attention of the world to how players, who were largely internal political actors, could use social media to game the political system using advanced technology.
What about the state of mainstream media? A message is circulating in social media that almost all mainstream media is owned and controlled by foreigners to include: Christian Churches and some by Communists and Gulf Muslim Entities. In the name of “Freedom of Press”, most media editors and journalists play out skewed coverage to suit their patron’s propaganda.
In a stern warning to the international community recently, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar cautioned against unwarranted political commentary on India's internal matters, stressing that any such interference would be met with a "very strong reply". Jaishankar's remarks came in the wake of recent statements by envoys from the US, Germany, and the UN regarding the arrest of Kejriwal by ED.
Social media was very new in 2009. Some like Pradeep Gupta, Axis My India, terms political consultancy a new phenomenon; others believe that it is not a new phenomenon. The 2014 general elections for the Lok Sabha were referred to as the nation’s first social media election. Social media had a great impact in influencing the choices of first-time voters in the 2019 general election for the Lok Sabha. Likes of Prashant Kishor, Sunil Kanugolu, Partha Pratim Das and so on are political consultants on the roll and their consulting charges depend upon the areas the consultant or the agency handles for the party or candidate. Yet, a report by a New Delhi-based think tank Lokniti-CSDS indicates that the effect of social media on determining outcomes of Indian elections has been pretty limited.
Finally, the Charter of the United Nations (UN) establishes sovereign equality and each state’s political independence as bedrock elements of the international system; the UN General Assembly has affirmed that no state “has the right to intervene directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state”; and the International Court of Justice has held that every sovereign State has the right “to conduct its affairs without outside interference”.
Currently, India possesses an elaborate structure of surveillance and monitoring, which includes monitoring the Internet. At the Apex level, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) is the lead body responsible for technical intelligence in India, which includes cyber security, data gathering and processing, and strategic monitoring. The NTRO reports to the National Security Adviser and falls under the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, which is deemed as the designated nodal agency (under section 70A of IT Act)104 to protect all critical information infrastructure, including sectors under five broad headings: (1) power and energy; (2) banking, financial institutions, and insurance; (3) information and communication technology; (4) transportation; and (5) e-governance and strategic public enterprises.
Ten Central Government agencies are officially entitled to monitor and decrypt any information on a computer resource. Often, these overlap and create problems, leading to turf wars. This list includes the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing. India has the Central Monitoring System, which allows income tax officials and security agencies to intercept any form of communication over calls or e-mails by sending intercept requests. This system is administered by the Centre for Development of Telemetric (C-DOT).
India’s legislation dealing with all things online is the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act). The act is grossly under equipped to deal with present-day threats. The penal provisions in the act, found in Chapter IX and Chapter XI, mainly deal with crimes such as attacks, hacking, and such and are not built to deal with breaches such as election interference through social media. These penal provisions are from a time when cyber warfare did not figure in Indian policy makers’ outlook.
After Justice B.N. Srikrishna, chairman of the Committee of Experts on Data Protection, submitted the committee’s report with many recommendations, and the Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2019. It has currently been referred to a standing committee and a report is awaited. Even when the Personal Data Protection Bill is passed, India still will not have comprehensive legislation or stated doctrine to deal with instances of cyber warfare. Social media interference is only a small part of cyber warfare and information warfare.
To sum up, democracy is acknowledged as one of the most fragile forms of government, as it depends upon the “will of the people” for its strength. And, the “will of the people” is most unpredictable, particularly in pluralist and diverse society. Therefore, liberal democratic processes are vulnerable to external interference. Hence, it is important for India to effectively identify threats and ensure that they do not consume the system while ensuring that free thought and new ideas prosper.
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