The second aspect of corruption in politics is the extent to which criminality intersects with, and resides within, the political sphere. While criminality cannot be simply reduced to corruption in the traditional sense of the word, politicians associated with criminal activity are inextricably tied to corruption on two accounts. First, they acquire political status on the basis of their ability to manipulate the state to divert benefits to a narrowly defined community (often violating the legal norms that exist on paper). Second, such politicians cultivate their own criminal reputations and perpetuate the corruption and subversion of the state to consolidate their own political success.
One quintessential example of such a politician is Raghuraj Pratap Singh, commonly known as “Raja Bhaiya,” a man whom one journalist described as having successfully maintained “a life in politics coterminous with a life in crime” for over two decades.152 Since first entering politics in 1993, Raja Bhaiya has won election to the Uttar Pradesh state assembly five consecutive times representing the constituency of Kunda.
A member of the royal family of the onetime Bhadri princely state in Pratapgarh, Raja Bhaiya has allegedly traded on his ancestral lineage, landlord roots, Rajput (Hindu upper caste) bona fides, and criminal reputation to seize, and to maintain, a hold over local politics. In each of his five electoral victories, he has won no less than 65 percent of his constituency’s vote, a remarkable achievement in a country with intensely competitive elections. In the poetic words of one local resident, Raja Bhaiyya ke ishare ke bina ek patta bhi nahi hilta (Not even a leaf can flutter without Raja Bhaiyya’s permission).153
Raja Bhaiya is not the first member of his family to come under a cloud of criminal scrutiny. His father, Uday Pratap Singh, had also earned the reputation as a feared gangster in Uttar Pradesh politics, at one time reportedly racking up as many as 34 criminal cases— including charges of violating the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).154
As someone who is seen as a protector of the Rajputs, an influential vote bank, Raja Bhaiya has played an outsized role in his state’s complex caste politics. Indeed, he has been named a minister in the Uttar Pradesh state government on five separate occasions. When Raja Bhaiya was invited to join the cabinet as food minister in the Samajwadi Party government elected to office in 2012, observers saw it as an effort by the ruling party to “mollycoddle the Rajputs.”155
Raja Bhaiya was also given additional charge of the prisons portfolio in 2012. Having spent his fair share of time behind bars pending various criminal trials, one could say he was uniquely suited to this role. At the time of his latest election (in 2012), Raja Bhaiya faced no fewer than eight criminal cases, including allegations of kidnapping, attempted murder, and dacoity. For many years, it was rumored that Raja Bhaiya stocked a lake on his property with live crocodiles, to which he would threaten to feed his enemies if they crossed him. Despite the number of charges filed against him, Raja Bhaiya has yet to be convicted of a serious crime.156 His criminal rap sheet, far from deterring electoral support, helped to consolidate it because it conveyed the impression that Raja Bhaiya is capable of going to great lengths to do what it is necessary to protect his constituents’ interests.157
In addition to wielding a potent mix of strong-arm tactics and caste politics to construct an impressive political base, Raja Bhaiya also used his position and his alleged criminal support structure to simultaneously substitute for, and subvert, the state apparatus. Asked why he has been able to monopolize political power in his area, Raja Bhaiya once explained: “Anyone can say he is your representative. And occasionally, he will tar a stretch of road, or add a few streetlights, or get a new well dug. . . . What the people need is someone to intercede for them when they get into trouble with the police; someone to speak on their behalf to government babus [bureaucrats] and get their work done. Someone to solve their problems.”158
The ability to substitute for the state gives politicians backed by serious criminal reputations an authority and legitimacy to take advantage of the state as well. According to an investigation into the activities of Uttar Pradesh’s food ministry, as much as $14.5 billion in food grain intended for poor beneficiaries was looted in the decade of the 2000s.159 Between 2004 and 2007, a former aide to Raja Bhaiya told Bloomberg that he collected $200,000 per week from local officials implementing the food scam under Raja Bhaiya’s watchful eye.160
The Bedrock of Administrative Corruption
Any discussion of grand corruption in India would be incomplete without at least a mention of the endemic system of administrative corruption that has existed in India and persists to the present day. This provides the foundation for high-level malfeasance and illegality, operating through at least three channels.161
The first involves officials charging fees or soliciting bribes for providing citizens with basic government services that they are eligible to receive, embodied in the distribution of drivers’ licenses in Delhi or the targeting of certain households for Below Poverty Line (BPL) cards. One study found that 75 percent of households surveyed in rural Karnataka paid a bribe to get a BPL card. The incidence of misallocation was on the order of one in every two households in the state.162
The second involves collusion between public and private actors, such as companies paying bribes to government officers in order to bypass fines and regulations or win government contracts. For instance, a 2014 survey of global economic crime by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the industry reporting the greatest degree of procurement fraud was government/state-owned enterprises.163 This corruption need not involve the complicity of politicians, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it typically does. Indeed, it is an integral piece of the vertical patron-client relationship. The incentive for bureaucrats to comply with a politician’s desire is, in part, financial—compliant bureaucrats may receive a percentage of any private payments, sending some portion upward to the politician. Alternatively, noncompliant bureaucrats may find themselves victim to a politician’s ability to arbitrarily transfer them for reasons not related to performance—a sword hanging over any bureaucrat’s head.164
One egregious example is the recent case of Haryana Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Ashok Khemka, who had the audacity to investigate and later cancel questionable land deals involving Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi. Although Khemka’s allegations were later independently confirmed by a report of the CAG, the officer’s willingness to stamp out corruption came at a considerable cost.165 In response to Khemka’s actions on the Vadra deal, the Congress government of Haryana charged the officer with professional misconduct, a charge that was later dropped.166 Khemka’s commitment to probity has come at a substantial professional cost; he has been transferred 46 times thus far in his 22-year career.167 This “Transfer Raj” is what helps keep this peculiar social contract between politician and bureaucrat intact.168
A final form of administrative corruption involves embezzlement. This is what Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had in mind when he once famously claimed that only 15 percent of benefits disbursed by the government of India actually reach the poor.169 The remaining 85 percent is siphoned off along the way. Also common is the practice of bureaucrats collecting a salary while shirking their official responsibilities. An extensive survey of government schools in 2006 found that 25 percent of schoolteachers were absent when researchers randomly showed up at their schools. In 2014, when the researchers repeated the experiment, very little had changed; this time, the rate of absenteeism stood at 23 percent.170
VENN DIAGRAM OF GRAND CORRUPTION
Atop a foundation of administrative corruption, the three modalities of “grand” corruption—regulatory, extractive, and political—provide a snapshot of the governance challenges India faces and offer a context for the larger ecosystem in which the country’s struggles with political criminality are situated. Yet a critical element of this ecosystem is the interaction among the var
ious pillars.
As Raghuram Rajan has pithily summed up: “The poor need the savvy politicians to help them navigate through rotten public services. The politician needs the corrupt businessman to provide the funds that allow him to supply patronage to the poor and fight elections. The corrupt businessman needs the politician to get natural resources cheaply. And the politician needs the votes of the poor, who are numerous enough to assure him reelection, no matter how much an idealistic middle class may rail. Every constituency is tied to the other in a cycle of dependence, which ensures the status quo prevails.”171
The alleged exploits of the father-son duo of YSR and Jagan Reddy aptly demonstrate several of these overlaps. YSR’s emergence was steeped in the muscular politics of Rayalaseema, further fueled by his access to financial resources and boosted by his control over natural resource extraction. The corrosive regulatory environment which mediated relations between the state and private capital allowed YSR, if prosecutors and India’s top auditor are to be believed, to trade regulatory and policy favors in exchange for “investments” (i.e., bribes), which were then allegedly channeled into the vast business empire overseen by Jagan Reddy.172
YSR was also instrumental in giving an early break to another set of Reddys (no relation), the sibling trio of Janardhana, Karunakara, and Somashekara Reddy, another family success story seemingly intertwined with the three pillars of grand corruption. The Reddy brothers hail from Bellary in the state of Karnataka, which borders Andhra to the west. Janardhana, the most ambitious of the trio, was an entrepreneur who struck up a friendship with YSR.173 Despite possessing zero experience in the mining sector, Janardhana started his own venture in iron ore extraction, the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC), to chase the profits stemming from increasing Chinese demand and newly relaxed export controls. Thanks to these changes, the price of iron ore skyrocketed from a measly $17 per metric ton to $130 in 2010, making even bit players in the industry overnight successes. “People who had no knowledge of mining but who had money or muscle power” rushed to join the mining race, using shovels, pick-axes, and an unclaimed bit of land to set up shop.174
Late to the game, the brothers had missed out on the Bellary boom, where the mining universe became quickly saturated, but Janardhana convinced his old friend YSR to grant OMC licenses in a neighboring district on the Andhra Pradesh side of the border. Flush with cash, the brothers’ ambitions quickly grew, and they soon sought a more formal engagement in politics to protect and multiply their investments.
In 1999, the brothers threw in their lot with the BJP, supporting the party financially. In 2008, in part thanks to the brothers’ largesse, the BJP won 110 seats in the Karnataka state election, an impressive showing but short of an outright majority. By reportedly paying off independent candidates 250 million rupees ($3.8 million) each to switch their affiliations to the BJP and promising them lucrative government posts, the Reddy brothers emerged as kingmakers.175 When asked about the brothers’ intervention, Janardhana Reddy hardly denied these allegations: “We asked [the independent legislators] and they answered positively. And God has given us enough. We are only sharing what we have.”176 In addition to winning seats in the Karnataka state legislature, two of the brothers were selected to join the cabinet. A fourth, honorary “brother”—B. Sriramulu—was awarded the health ministry.
From that day forward, the BJP government in Karnataka owed its allegiance to the Reddy brothers.177 According to allegations made by anticorruption investigators, the brothers wasted no time in exploiting their leverage, barging into the Bellary mining market to facilitate the illicit mining and transport of iron ore and extorting or coercing those who stood in their way.178 In the words of the anticorruption ombudsman who eventually brought the Reddy brothers’ various exploits to light, “That district had become the Republic of Bellary. It is not part of India.”179 The brothers amassed fabulous wealth and were not bashful about openly flaunting it. They built a sixty-room mansion, bought several helicopters, and imported expensive foreign cars. Janardhana allegedly even purchased a throne made of gold for their palatial home.180 Even after literally moving the state border to expand their Andhra mining operations beyond the terms of their license, the brothers acted with impunity under the permissive gaze of both the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka governments.181
Those in government who could have stopped them were either bought off or incompetent.182 Instead, the government just granted more and more mining licenses. When Karnataka government agencies did attempt a crackdown on illegal mining, the brothers launched a fierce rebellion, threatening to pull down the BJP government unless the harsh policies were reversed and the offending ministers sacked. The chief minister of the state, the veteran politician B. S. Yeddyurappa, was forced to hastily call a press conference, during which he openly sobbed, apologizing “to the people of the state for this situation.” Soon enough, the Bellary brothers got their way and Yeddyurappa got to keep his job.183
When companies refused to share a cut of their illegal mining profits with OMC, the brothers allegedly responded fiercely.184 About Janardhana Reddy, one investigative journalist mused: “Those he hates, he crushes. . . . He has spent much time with political toughies who can bludgeon their way through. This makes him think like a street fighter. He is able to scare people.”185 In the 2008 state election, Sriramulu (the honorary brother) was twice arrested: first for allegedly burning a rival candidate’s car and then later on reports that he assaulted a Congress worker.186 One local resident remarked, “Politics is dirty in India, but it is dirtiest here in Bellary.”187
YSR’s death removed one of the brothers’ key patrons, and shortly thereafter the Karnataka anticorruption ombudsman released a damning indictment of the brothers’ illicit mining racket.188 Janardhana was charged with orchestrating the illicit mining ring but, as of November 2015, was still awaiting trial.189 Yet, the brothers hardly seem chastened. Somashekara, who is under investigation for trying to bribe a judge overseeing his brother’s bail application, told a reporter: “Yes, my brother mined illegally, but everybody did it openly at that time. . . . When [he] went to jail, the goddess of wealth left thousands of Bellary homes too.”190
NARROWING OUR SIGHTS
The failure of India’s public institutions to keep pace with the dramatic political, economic, and social transformations under way has led to severe gaps in governance. The end result of this disjuncture has been a proliferation of grand corruption—a malaise made up of a diverse array of regulatory, extractive, and political rent-seeking activities. With this context in mind, Part II hones in on this third and final domain, or how corruption and crime are manifest in the realm of democratic politics.
II
3 Criminal Enterprise
Why Criminals Joined Politics
“GOD BROUGHT ME into this profession,” proclaimed Arun Gawli, sporting a white Gandhian topi (hat) that so many Indian politicians regularly don.1 The year was 1997 and Gawli was still adjusting to his new incarnation as aspiring politico and head of a budding new political party, the Akhil Bharatiya Sena (ABS). Headgear notwithstanding, Gawli was no ordinary neta (politician). Known as the “Daddy” who ruled Dagdi Chawl, a slum in the heart of teeming Mumbai once home to many of the city’s blue-collar mill workers, Gawli was one of the most feared gangsters in India’s “Maximum City.”
The son of migrants from central India who traded life in rural Madhya Pradesh for metropolitan Mumbai, Gawli dropped out of primary school to work as a milkman so that he could support his impoverished family in the big city. Hailing from a family of country shepherds, Gawli struggled to find his way in Mumbai, but he eventually found his place toiling among the city’s mills, where he hooked up with a local gang charged with protecting goods being smuggled to Mumbai by the notorious mobster Dawood Ibrahim.2 Gawli quickly moved up the ranks, making a name for himself as a force to be reckoned with in the central Mumbai lanes of Byculla. Following an internecine gangland spat, Gawli went from se
rving Dawood Ibrahim to allegedly ordering hits on the mobster’s men.
In no time, Dagdi Chawl became ground zero for Mumbai’s notorious underworld. From his fortress-like compound, Daddy dispensed patronage, protection, and even justice to local residents. Journalists who came to interview Gawli wrote of the hundreds of men and women—unemployed youth, aging widows, aspiring gangsters, and established politicians—who queued up on a daily basis in front of the iron gates of Gawli’s compound just for a few minutes of face time in the hopes of being showered with Daddy’s munificence.3 They came seeking building permits, ration cards, welfare payments, employment—all things the state was meant to provide but was either unable or unwilling to.
As Gawli’s stature grew, the Shiv Sena—an influential regional political party—brought him into their fold. The Sena was founded in the late 1960s as a platform for espousing the rights of native Maharashtrians, many of whom chafed at the influx of migrants who had relocated to Mumbai in search of economic opportunity. Founded by media-savvy former news cartoonist Bal Thackeray, the Sena quickly emerged as a political force in Mumbai and other urban centers in the state thanks to the popularity of its “sons of the soil” propaganda and the network of social service provisions its cadres established to serve destitute locals.4
Even while functioning as a mainstream political party, the Sena instilled within its members an organizational ethos of “direct action,” a euphemism for threatening force and occasionally using it. Gawli’s arrangement with the Sena was never well defined, but in media interviews he sketched the basic understanding: “The netas come to the underworld during elections. To fix voters. They also come for funds. Since they seek help they also have to help when it comes to fixing the police.”5 Thackeray, in turn, openly claimed Daddy as the party’s mascot: “If they [Muslims] have Dawood, we [Hindus] have Gawli. These [referring to Gawli and fellow gangster Amar Naik] are amchi muley [our boys, in Marathi, the local vernacular].”6
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