Rajeev Chandrasekhar: ‘Cockroach Janta Party is a cross-border influence operation…of course, many youths dissatisfied’

I wanted to tell people that there is a need to understand that there are all the signs that (this) is a very concerted influence operation mounted by whoever…it’s not my job or my capability to find out who it is. I have seen many in the past and I know as long as there is social media, now with bots and AI, we can look forward to such influence operations of this kind and many more.

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* But the Government line is that India’s a global power, with growing engagement across the world, with US, Russia, China…Quad begins Monday…What are these outside forces destabilising India?

We are the world’s largest democracy. We certainly have a moral standing, a global standing and economic standing that others have recognised. The issue here is as India rises, this rise will not be uncontested. The old narrative that India with its poverty, weak and feeble narrative has been changed significantly… there are forces that are not happy with it…I am not creating an Oliver Stone-like conspiracy theory, but it’s just absolute common sense that as India’s economic clout rises, as India’s growth increases, as India becomes a significant power and security power, there are many countries that would say ‘how do we slow down this or how do we put a brake on this growth.’ We must recognise it and accept it.

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* You yourself use social media to communicate…all parties use it to build a narrative, recently TVK, a political party, rode a social  media campaign… So when a group of youngsters use social media to vent their criticism, why is blocking that a solution?

I did not say blocking is a solution. When I was just an MP, way back, I had recognised social media, when everyone was in denial, that social media is going to be an increasingly powerful tool to shape public opinion. It democratises opinions, the ability to go out and get information directly without having been intermediated by legacy journalism… There are many things good about social media, there are also many things that are in the bucket of harm. Harms of social media are when it is weaponized , when it is misused , when it conveys misinformation etc.. Anybody today can create a narrative and with the aid of bots and AI, the misinformation spreads like wildfire…

Dissent is not particularly a bad thing about democracy. Dissent is something contradictory: opinion, debate, opinion — these are good…Democracies are open societies where everyone is allowed to have an opinion, so misinformation and influence operations are used to destabilise democracies. It’s an age-old practice that has now landed itself squarely on social media. I am not trying to say every dissent is an influence operation. I am not saying we must suspect every person who has a contradictory view…But we will be very foolish and ignorant if we are not opening our eyes to the fact that there are people who want to create instability and destabilise India. All they have to do is to mount a reasonably inexpensive operation that seems to be an organic narrative but absolutely fuelled by chat and AI bots to create trouble.

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* Is that how you see the Cockroach Janta Party?

According to me, I have some experience in it, this has many of the hallmarks of something that is coordinated and planned rather than something like a spontaneous anger against the Chief Justice of India’s statement. I am not in government, I am sitting far away in Kerala. But with my experience I can say this has some of the hallmarks of a coordinated influence operation. Who has mounted it, who is behind it that is for the government to check.

* Do you agree with the CJI’s remarks?

I am just a political worker and I have no standing to get into what the CJI said. It’s a high Constitutional position. But I understand he was misquoted and we should leave at that. We must accept it. But despite that, there is this coordinated effort.

* Doesn’t the youth have reason to be worried? There is economic uncertainty, shrinking job prospects, lakhs of boys and girls forced to retake NEET because of a leak, not a single senior official held accountable.

We have had to deal with, as a nation and, as a world, one crisis after another. We had a pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war that resulted in energy shock and supply chain disruptions. We have had the US-Iran war, Chinese aggression in between, terror attacks by Pakistan. All these are not isolated Black Swan events. India is the biggest victim of it because our 1.5 billion Indians had to deal with it.

We have managed to go through all of these…Of course, we have had price rise, hike in petrol prices I am not underplaying it. But we have had low to moderate inflation, our financial sector and banking sector are still strong. Small businesses are getting emergency line credit from the government. We are continuing to expand and grow. Of course, there’s going to be dissatisfaction. There will be many youths dissatisfied, their aspirations are becoming higher but the opportunities are not keeping pace with it.

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Has the Education Ministry, NEET and other mess-ups impacted children’s morale, parents’? Of course, yes. Should there be some introspection and accountability? Yes. Part of it is because we are moving  from a classroom examination to an online examination model. That transformation has not been smooth. There is no doubt about it. The NTA, which is supposed to conduct the NEET, has not delivered. I am also a parent, everyone will be frustrated that the NTA has not done a good job in terms of managing this transition. There must have been a private company involved in this. Who is this vendor behind NTA? The technological transition even when it was done in the Income Tax portal, there was confusion. Somebody who is in charge of it obviously has not done a perfect job… I do not think in Narendra Modiji’s government, people will go without being held accountable…The government may not say publicly that we have held this person accountable. But I have no doubt that whoever has not done this transition perfectly will be held to account.. That’s the way the Narendra Modi government works.