India's Democratic Marketplace for Criminality
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DEMOCRATIC AUTHORITARIANISM a symposium on the fusion of authoritarianism and democracy in India and the world symposium participants 14 THE PROBLEM Posed by Kanchan Chandra, Professor, Wilf Family Department of Politics, New York University 16 AUTHORITARIAN ELEMENTS IN DEMOCRACY Kanchan Chandra, Professor, Wilf Family Department of Politics, New York University 23 THE AUTHORITARIAN TEMPTATION Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University 27 THE AUTHORITARIANISM OF DONALD TRUMP Scott Malcomson, International Security Fellow, New America Foundation, New York 32 WHAT IT MEANS TO RULE LIKE PUTIN Henry Hale, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington, DC 37 THE AGE OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT Manu Bhagavan, Professor of History and Human Rights, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York 43 MODI’S COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM Rajeev Deshpande, Chief of National Bureau, ‘The Times of India’, Delhi 47 KARUNANIDHI AND TAMIL POLITICS Andrew Wyatt, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Bristol and C. Manikandan, independent scholar 52 LIVING UNDER AMMA John Harriss, Professor, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia 56 MORAL TRANSCENDENCE? THE GURU IN DEMOCRACY Aya Ikegame, Associate Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo 59 THE CULT OF THE BOSS Lucia Michelutti, Department of Anthropology, University College London 65 INDIA’S DEMOCRATIC MARKETPLACE FOR CRIMINALITY Milan Vaishnav, Senior Fellow, South Asia, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC 70 AFSPA: THE DARKER SIDE OF INDIAN DEMOCRACY Sanjib Baruah, Professor of Political Studies, Bard College, New York 77 BOOKS Reviewed by Sudhir Chandra and Sushila Ravindranath 13 81 COMMENT Crime and Punishment in Syria Vithal Rajan, writer and playwright, Hyderabad 84 BACKPAGE COVER Designed by www.designosis.in India’s democratic marketplace for criminality M I L A N V A I S H N A V ONE of the most distinctive develop- At first glance, the affinity ments in India’s post-independence between crime and politics paints a political evolution has been the grow- mental picture of democracy being ing nexus between crime and politics.1 subverted by rogue actors who regu- Indeed, a statistic often quoted in larly employ coercion or violence and reference to India’s present political whose actions defy the popular will. economy is that as many as one-third And coercion, to be sure, is very much of elected Members of Parliament a part of many criminal politicians’ (MPs) face ongoing criminal cases. standard repertoires. Indeed, a candi- While many of these cases involve date’s coercive reputation can be minor charges, one in five MPs face viewed as an asset insofar as it helps at least one case involving potentially to weaken or counterbalance political serious infractions, ranging from mur- opposition from rival groups through der to physical assault.2 (actual or threatened) violence and The group of lawmakers (and intimidation. alleged lawbreakers) include figures But criminality cannot be such as Pappu Yadav, a notorious reduced to coercion or the perpetra- bahubali who once bragged that tion of violence alone. Especially there was no jail in his home state of since the mid-1990s, when the ECI Bihar whose insides he was not fami- (Election Commission of India) came liar with; Rajan Vichare, the Shiv Sena into its own as a powerful ‘referee’ strongman hailing from Thane in institution, booth capturing and brazen Maharashtra, who faces a dozen cases intimidation at the polling booth have winding their way through the courts; precipitously declined.3 Operating in and the Congress Party’s Adhir environments where there are serious Ranjan Chowdhury, the self-styled governance gaps, criminal politicians ‘Robin Hood of Baharampur’ in West also rely on non-coercive mechanisms Bengal. Despite the anti-corruption – such as redistribution, social insur- rhetoric of Bharatiya Janata Party ance, and dispute resolution – to win (BJP) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, over voters. eight legislators in his first cabinet were Therefore, while scholars must connected to serious criminal cases. acknowledge that coercion is typically Indeed, the prevalence of criminal taint part of the modus operandi of seri- is widespread, touching all parties and ous criminal politicians, they must also reaching all corners of the country. devote sufficient attention to under- standing how ‘tainted’ politicians do 1. This article is based on edited excerpts from not simply survive, but thrive in some the author’s book, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. HarperCollins of the most competitive elections in the India, New Delhi, 2017. The author is grate- 3. E. Sridharan and Milan Vaishnav, ‘Election ful to Rebecca Brown for research assistance Commission of India’, in Devesh Kapur, and Kanchan Chandra for her comments. Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Milan Vaishnav 65 2. Data compiled by the Association for (eds.), Rethinking Public Institutions in India. Democratic Reforms; for more information, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2017, see http://myneta.info. pp. 415-461. SEMINAR 693 – May 2017 world. Like all politicians in India, those akin to free agents, in the early post- electoral politics. Much like private with criminal reputations also live and independence era. Indeed, even in the firms seeking to ‘vertically integrate’ die at the ballot box. And, arguably, first general election of 1951-2, the their operations, criminals decided to elections today are freer and fairer ECI found scattered evidence of Con- cut out the politician middleman in than they have been at other points in gress Party politicians contracting order to maximize control over their India’s post-independence history. with local strongmen to influence own survival and protection by becom- To that end, I argue that it is elections by coercing opponents, ing politicians. 6 For example, a gang- useful to view the relative success of mobilizing supporters, distributing ster such as Suryadeo Singh – a huge criminal politicians as a byproduct of clientelistic handouts, and, in some player in the Dhanbad coal mafia – par- democratic practice, rather than its extreme cases, stuffing ballot boxes.5 layed his rising clout into a successful authoritarian antithesis. Indeed, under In providing assistance to politicians, career in politics, contesting and win- certain conditions, malfeasant politi- criminals occasionally engaged in ille- ning assembly elections in 1977 and, cians and democratic accountability gal activity, but they also used their eventually, a seat in the Lok Sabha in can be compatible. Granted, this form social capital and local standing to bridge 1984. of accountability is often partial, the divide between state and society imperfect, or counterintuitive. Yet, it in ways that political parties increas- offers a corrective to the traditional ingly struggled to do, especially as their This transition played out in the 1970s narrative that the very existence of a organizational foundations atrophied. and 1980s; by the 1990s, the predomi- large number of corrupt or criminal nance of elected representatives fac- legislators is symptomatic of a break- ing criminal charges, including those down in the standard chain of demo- Over time, a number of trends pulled of a serious nature, had been locked in. cratic accountability. criminals into a more direct role in elec- For instance, an estimated eight per toral politics; these included the cent of Uttar Pradesh Members of the gradual erosion of the Congress Par- Legislative Assembly (MLAs) elected It is helpful to think about politicians, ty’s hegemonic status, rising social in 1984 assumed office while under of all types, operating within an elec- demands often expressed through criminal scrutiny. In 2012, that share toral marketplace.4 In elections, there identity politics, the deterioration of stood at 45 per cent. are buyers (voters) and sellers (parties public sector institutions, and the col- The supply of criminally linked and politicians). As with any market, lapse of the prevailing system of politicians, however, cannot be reduced there are both supply and demand fac- financing elections. However, criminals to a story of individual incentives alone. tors at work that allow the market to were also pushed into politics by their In nearly all democracies, parties are survive. The idea of supply can be ultimate desire for self-preservation. the key gatekeepers that decide which disaggregated into two components: As political competition intensified politicians eventually get a spot on the decision of individuals to step for- and the party system grew increasingly the ballot. Candidates always have the ward as candidates, and the selection fragmented, criminals allied with the option of running as independents, of candidates by political parties. Congress could no longer take their but the success of those choosing this In India, the initial supply of political patrons’ re-election for option is rather limited, in India and criminality resulted from strategic granted. This uncertainty created elsewhere. Indeed, according to ECI decisions taken by criminal entrepre- huge new risks for criminals: without data, of the 4,300 MPs elected bet- neurs who had long been active