When Crime Pays

by Milan Vaishnav

  “This has been a great experience,” Sanjay told me in the car as we drove to a nearby village for a rally, “but my wallet does not agree with me.” We both laughed before he continued, “This election is costing me between $1.5 and $2 million.” Doing the math in my head, I figured his estimate was in the ballpark of thirty to forty times the legal limit state assembly candidates could spend (roughly $47,000) under Indian law. Sanjay went on to explain that most of the money was his own or his family’s—as a newcomer, he could not rely on big corporate donations, and his party was not much help either. His unique background and personal wealth had made him an attractive candidate, and so he had no problems securing a nomination.

  Now, however, he was literally paying the price—handing out an unending stream of cash to media houses for advertising, to workers for food and liquor to keep them motivated, and occasionally to the wayward government officer on election duty for a sweetening bribe. In fact, at one of Sanjay’s rallies I attended later in the week, the proceedings were interrupted by a probing government officer on election duty who was tasked with ensuring the candidate had the proper permissions. Within minutes, the officer disappeared, and I turned to Sanjay’s campaign manager to find out what had happened. “We will settle this later directly with him,” he whispered. “This is election season so everyone is looking for their cut.”

  Sanjay estimated that three-quarters of his total election expenditure would take place in the final 48 to 72 hours of campaigning, when trusted members of his team would fan out across the constituency handing out wads of cash and liquor to voters in the constituency as inducements. Sanjay’s story was a familiar one; politicians in India are notorious for distributing all manner of goodies in the run-up to Election Day. To get around Election Commission strictures, candidates have come up with ingenious workarounds. In Sanjay’s case, rather than risk distributing actual bottles of alcohol—which could raise unnecessary suspicion—campaign workers provided households with vouchers (that looked like innocent scraps of paper) for free booze that they could redeem at local liquor outlets.3 For most households, country hooch would suffice. For influential notables or well-to-do residents, the campaign was compelled to gift name brand liquor.4

  I was dubious whether this type of “vote buying” was actually effective. In 2010 I had met a voter in Bihar who, mistaking me for a politician, desperately asked me to buy his vote. When I asked him how much he required, he admitted that one party had already given him 100 rupees. So if I gave him money too, would he vote for me, I asked? He let out a devilish grin and confessed he takes money from all candidates but then votes for whomever he wishes on the actual day.

  I relayed this story to Sanjay and he nodded approvingly. “If money is distributed, voters might give you a chance. But if money is not distributed, you are finished,” he said. It was difficult, if not impossible, to secure an airtight quid pro quo, but the money and goodies were a sign of goodwill and largesse. Politicians like Sanjay held out hope that if they gave more money than the next guy, norms of reciprocity would kick in and voters would feel obliged to vote “the right way.”

  When we reached the village rally, I was introduced to a man who had previously contested state elections in the area but was now campaigning for Sanjay. I asked the man why he chose not to run again; he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, making the universal gesture for cash. “I just finished paying off the last one,” he said with a laugh. Without going into detail, I casually mentioned my conversation with Sanjay about campaign costs. “That’s nothing,” he remarked. “The man who is running for the parliamentary seat from this area is spending several times as much.”

  Later that night, when we returned to Sanjay’s party office after a series of exhausting though exhilarating rallies, I asked him why he decided to get into politics. He responded by citing all the usual reasons one would expect: public service, a desire to help people, a belief he could better represent the constituency than the incumbent. But given the huge expenses, was the financial investment worth it? “If I am lucky enough to win, next time, I’ll need even more money,” he lamented, already pondering his potential reelection expenses. “How does one remain honest and succeed in politics in this country?” he wondered aloud.

  Before departing Sanjay’s constituency, I spent some time with one of the young men tasked with handling the large amounts of cash Sanjay’s campaign would distribute on the eve of elections. The boy, whose parents were longtime friends of the candidate’s, described to me the intricate network of cash distribution he would play a small role in facilitating. The constituency was divided into five segments and for each segment, the candidate had entrusted one family member or close associate with the responsibility of providing “goodies” on the eve of voting. Each of the five “block” leaders, in turn, had five deputies, and so on. The boy was one such deputy, but for someone entrusted with so much responsibility he appeared deeply uninterested in politics, telling me that he was doing it only as a favor since Sanjay was a close family friend. When I asked him if he ever thought of joining politics, his response was swift: “No way.” Politics was a dirty game, he said, and money was having a corrosive effect.

  A few weeks before I arrived in Andhra, the state held local body elections, and the boy was asked by another politician friend of the family to help in the final days of the campaign. The candidate he was tasked with helping had come up with a clever plan to win votes: rather than handing out cash to voters, he would distribute free cell phones. The phones were worth several hundred rupees, but the candidate had ordered in bulk and hence received a huge discount from his supplier. The ploy backfired, the boy explained, because most voters already had a mobile phone and had no use for a second one. Furthermore, voters felt the candidate was behaving like a cheapskate. The rival candidate in the area who stuck to traditional cash handouts won handily. Whether money had anything to do with the candidate’s loss was impossible to verify, but it was immaterial; there was a perception that it cost him the election. “Local elections now cost what state elections used to five years ago. State elections now cost what national elections used to. Where does it stop?” he asked. The role of “money power,” as it’s often called in India, had clearly colored the boy’s impressions of politics—and not in a good way.

  But the influx of money into politics was doing more than disillusioning young people; it was also shaping who steps forward to enter politics (and who does not) in the first place. Before heading to the local airport to catch a flight out of town, I paid one last visit to Sanjay in his makeshift party office. I regaled him with stories the young boy had told me—stories, of course, that Sanjay had already heard. I promised Sanjay I would return in several months if he won his election. “If I win,” Sanjay daydreamed, “maybe I will run for member of Parliament in five years.” He paused, smiling, “But to do that, I’ll have to become a billionaire first.”

  BEYOND WINNABILITY

  The previous chapter demonstrated that criminals first joined electoral politics for a variety of factors, not least of which was their desire to vertically integrate their operations in an attempt to guarantee their self-preservation. But understanding the supply of certain types of candidates in the electoral marketplace in any modern democracy—including India’s—requires one to consider not just the incentives of aspirant politicians but also those of political parties as well. As political scientist Paul Brass has noted, “In every modern polity, and in every polity which aspires to modernity, political parties are the indispensable link between the society and the institutions of government.”5 Parties are, in short, the “mechanism through which power is organized and exercised in a democracy.”6 Therefore, any explanation that focuses exclusively on the self-selection of candidates renders parties redundant, which is out of sync with the essential gate-keeping function they fulfill.7

  Whatever criminals’ precise motivations might be to contest elections, it is not immediately obvious
why political parties play along. After all, it seems natural to assume that parties might shrink from selecting candidates linked to criminality out of concern for their reputation. Any compelling exploration of the factors influencing the supply of criminals into the electoral marketplace, therefore, has to grapple with the question: why do parties recruit “muscle,” or candidates known to have serious criminal backgrounds?

  In India, parties across the political spectrum nominate candidates who have criminal cases pending against them to the highest political office (figure 4.1). If one were to look at India’s five most popular parties, based on the combined number of parliamentary seats they won in 2004, 2009, and 2014, it is clear that criminality in politics is widespread. While there is some variation in the prevalence of candidates with criminal cases across parties, this is not an issue facing any one political party or type of party.

  India’s two truly national parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Indian National Congress (INC), both select a fair number of parliamentary candidates with pending cases, between 14 and 11 percent, respectively, who face serious cases. The Samajwadi Party (SP) of Uttar Pradesh and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) of West Bengal, both single-state parties, figure in this list, as does the ideologically driven Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]).8

  In one sense, the answer to why political parties in India nominate candidates with criminal backgrounds to stand for election is painfully obvious: because they win. Across the last three general elections, if one were to pick a candidate out of a hat, he or she would have—on average—a 6 percent chance of coming out on top (figure 4.2). Compare this with a candidate who boasts at least one criminal case: he or she has a nearly 18 percent chance of winning.

  Figure 4.1. Party nomination of Lok Sabha candidates with pending criminal cases, 2004–14. (Author’s calculations based on affidavits submitted to the Election Commission of India by candidates contesting the 2004, 2009, and 2014 parliamentary elections)

  The differences in state elections are slightly smaller but still stark: “clean” candidates (e.g., those who do not face pending criminal cases) have a 9.5 percent probability of winning whereas candidates with criminal cases have a roughly 22 percent chance—more than twice as large.9 Granted, this simple comparison does not take into account numerous other factors, such as a candidate’s age, education, partisan affiliation, or type of electoral constituency. Nevertheless, the contrast is marked. Indeed, if one were to disaggregate parliamentary candidates facing “serious” charges (those charges, such as assault or murder, which are clearly not tied to a politician’s normal job description), the divergence is marginally greater: compared to a 6 percent win rate for “clean” candidates, the win rate for candidates facing a charge of any type is just above 17 percent while the rate for candidates facing cases involving serious charges is 18 percent (figure 4.3). At the state level, whereas candidates without cases have a 9.5 percent chance of winning election, this probability increases to 19 percent for candidates with minor cases and 23 percent for those implicated in serious cases.10

  Figure 4.2. Criminal case status and electoral success in Lok Sabha elections, 2004–14. (Author’s calculations based on affidavits submitted to the Election Commission of India by candidates contesting the 2004, 2009, and 2014 parliamentary elections)

  To say that parties pick “winnable” candidates begs the question: what is it that makes them winnable? It turns out that a key factor motivating parties to select candidates with serious criminal records comes down to cold, hard cash. In a context of costly elections, weakly institutionalized parties, and an ineffectual election finance regime, parties are likely to prioritize self-financing candidates who do not represent a drain on finite party coffers but can instead contribute “rents” to the party. For these purposes, rents mean not only illicit financial transfers but also the ability of candidates to cover the expenses of contesting elections and bring in resources for the party. Implicitly, self-financing candidates also free up resources coveted by party elites. And, it turns out, individuals associated with criminal wrongdoing have both deep pockets and the willingness to invest resources in the service of politics (figure 4.4).

  Figure 4.3. Severity of criminal case status and electoral success in Lok Sabha elections, 2004–14. (Author’s calculations based on affidavits submitted to the Election Commission of India by candidates contesting the 2004, 2009, and 2014 parliamentary elections)

  Based on a wide array of evidence, it seems that the rent-seeking motivations of parties in India explain their dalliance with suspected criminal candidates exceptionally well. Findings from previous research, as well as my own interviews with politicians in India, confirm this connection: parties place a premium on muscle because it often brings with it the added benefit of money. Exploiting a new source of information, the candidate affidavits, to look into these previously opaque connections provides further confirmation. Data drawn from nearly 70,000 aspirant candidates in India over the last decade substantiate the claim that money and muscle are inexorably linked (see Appendix A for more information on the candidate data).

  Venturing into parties’ inner motivations for embracing criminal candidates adds an important dimension to the understanding of the supply-side considerations at play in the marketplace for criminal politicians. Candidates do not just present themselves to the electorate; in most democracies they enter the fray under the banner of a political party. In turn, parties, select candidates on the basis of hardheaded political calculations.

  Figure 4.4. How financial pressures faced by parties create demand for criminal candidates.

  RENTS AND RECRUITMENT

  In most modern democracies, parties play a vital gate-keeping role, carefully choosing the candidates who appear before voters. As important screeners, however, it is not immediately obvious why parties would knowingly throw their weight behind corrupt, incompetent, or low-quality candidates typically referred to as “bad politicians.” Yet evidence from a range of democracies suggests that parties are quite often in cahoots with many such individuals.11

  Why parties welcome such characters into their fold remains a mystery. Curiously, most studies treat the issue of bad politicians as a given. In other words, they assume that parties lack agency: they are simply empty vessels saddled with the burden of undesirable politicians. Thus, the question of bad politicians is framed primarily as an allocation decision: party bosses have a stable of bad politicians, and they must decide how to apportion them across electoral districts. For instance, one strand of thinking suggests that parties, once encumbered with bad politicians, will allocate them to less electorally competitive environments in order to preserve their “good” candidates for contestable elections to attract swing voters.12 Interestingly, some scholars have argued the exact opposite: that parties are more likely to select bad politicians in highly competitive—or “politically extreme”—contexts where parties are more desperate for a leg up and willing to take a gamble.13 In exceptionally competitive races, parties might be willing to recruit candidates who can use coercion to dampen opposition turnout. Other studies claim parties will send their bad politicians to economically poor places or areas where voters are poorly informed (and hence cannot discern between good and bad types).14

  While these studies acknowledge the role of political parties in candidate selection, parties appear to function as little more than glorified conveyor belts. Furthermore, they implicitly assume that a candidate’s bad behavior is a liability, rather than a potential asset, for a political party. As such, they are unable to provide a compelling explanation for why parties might actively recruit bad politicians, something they regularly do in India. Fundamentally, they cannot answer the question of what bad politicians bring to the table or what their comparative advantage might be. Parties might allocate bad politicians to competitive or electorally safe districts, to poor or low-information places, but why even bother recruiting them in the first place?
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  The Mother’s Milk of Politics

  One does not have to stretch one’s imagination very far to get a grip on why parties might willingly embrace candidates with unsavory biographies. In all democratic societies, a party’s primary job is to contest (and win) elections. Virtually every aspect of elections—from advertising to polling, and from voter sops to large rallies—requires money, typically vast amounts of it. American politician Jesse Unruh said it well when he famously claimed that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

  Where elections are costly and the rule of law is weak, parties are often motivated by rents, defined as an economic payoff where the ultimate beneficiary incurs no costs in producing that payoff. In other words, money that comes without strings attached. It is access to these rents that might motivate parties to recruit bad politicians in the first place. Economist Timothy Besley formalized this relationship between bad politicians and rent-seeking, arguing, “If rents are earned by parties as well as successful candidates, and protection of those rents is dependent on selecting bad politicians with little public service motivation, then the party may have an interest in putting up bad candidates.”15

  When economists think of rents, they typically think of illicit acts of corruption, but a more expansive definition of rents could also encompass Besley’s hypothesis. Take election finance, for instance. Because elections cost money, parties often have to use money from their own coffers to subsidize candidates’ expenditures. But if a candidate is able to independently finance his own campaign, he no longer constitutes a drain on party funds. The result is a positive rent in the sense that the party has more money to spend on other activities.