Author: Amrita Shah
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: September 27, 2004
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=55872
Introduction: When the underworld
seeks to enter the very system it means that it has lost fear.
Despite the media's breast-beating
and the periodic, usually self serving, protestations of political parties
on the subject, the criminalisation of politics continues apace. The list
of proposed candidates for the coming Maharashtra assembly elections, which
includes confirmed offenders, suspects in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts and
brothers of two of the world's most wanted criminals, is a portent for
the future.
Will they win? There are two reasons
why they could. One is the Robin Hood image gangsters assiduously cultivate.
In the past the methods used included settling disputes (usually with an
eye to their own benefit), donations at times of personal crises, mounting
religious celebrations and so on. With a move into politics the good deeds
have taken on a developmental hue. Today's tainted candidates talk piously
of building borewells and water tanks, renovating dilapidated houses and
donating ambulances to hospitals. The second reason is the growing significance
of money and muscle power in politics. It does not take much imagination
to conceive what Dawood Ibrahim's reported keenness to make his brother's
election in central Mumbai a "prestige" issue, would involve.
Crime bosses are powerful everywhere.
In China, Japan, Russia and a host of other countries. In the US, Martin
Short who made a revealing TV series on organised crime in America, claimed
that "(the) mafia is rarely two steps away from the White House".
The phenomenon of underworld figures
and their relatives actually entering the political fray however seems
less common and ironic, somewhat like the idea of Marxists fighting a democratic
election. The underworld - or La Mala Vita (evil life) as the Italians
call it - is a parallel world. It exists to subvert the laws and systems
of the recognised world.
When the underworld seeks to enter
the very system it is meant to subvert what does it mean? For one it means
that it has lost fear. It has lost fear not just of the keepers and makers
of the law but also of public opprobrium. The reason why gangsters stuck
to their own in the past, the reason why they slunk around rather than
strutted in public places was because there was an awareness of living
by different and not quite respectable rules.
If the dividing wall has come down
it is an indication of the growing acceptance of the underworld's aims
and methods. There is even a feeling among the populace that the law breaker,
with his ability to cut corners and broker deals of profit for himself,
is likely to get more results than the hidebound formal administration.
Which is why even the politician today does not feel the need to hide his
riches, in fact, can even flaunt them to display his "efficiency".
The other argument, used by a galaxy
of law breakers from Phoolan Devi, Haji Mastaan and Karim Lala to the current
crop of would-be politicians to win brownie points is that they represent
the interests of the disenfranchised-minorities/the lower castes. And there
is yet another hope which is that the hunger for respectability could reform
criminals, turn them into gentlemen.
The simple reason why all these
are unlikely is because the underworld exists for profit. Like the corporate
world its members seek opportunities for business and thrive on expanding
the same. Politics is only a means towards furthering that end.
Promulgating laws against criminals
in politics despite the technical complexities of what or who constitutes
a criminal would probably help curtail the phenomenon but need not bring
about a material change. "The mob makes so much money from legal and illegal
business that it can buy up the political hierarchies of entire cities
and counties," claims Short. Investigations in the ongoing Telgi case have
already provided some indication of the inroads made by a criminal network
into the system.
What then is the solution? Going
by Short's findings the answer is a depressing one. In 19th century America,
when politics was dominated by saloon owning criminals - the only people
who could afford the high cost of politics, he claims - that even if reformers
won an election on an anti-corruption platform, "the salon syndicate usually
had enough guile to outlast the reformers. After a few years the crooks
would get reelected, outwardly chastened perhaps but cannier than ever".
The alternative is hardly more cheering.
In Newark, flourishing corruption and the domination by the mob sparked
off protest riots in the late '60s. Both made it too expensive a place
to do business in. The economic base of the city, one of the major industrial
centers of northeastern United States till the '50s, was destroyed leaving
Newark "struggling for its survival".
