When Crime Pays

by Milan Vaishnav

  58. Powerful families like the Abdullahs (National Conference, Jammu and Kashmir); Pawars (Nationalist Congress Party, Maharashtra); Badals (Akali Dal, Punjab); Karunanidhis (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Tamil Nadu); or the Yadavs (Samajwadi Party, Uttar Pradesh) dominate key regional parties. Even parties that are not directly controlled by dynasties exhibit similar tendencies at more local levels.

  59. Sumanta Banerjee, “Politics sans Ideology,” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 12 (March 20, 2004): 1204–7.

  60. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, “Reform Political Parties First,” Seminar 497 (January 2001), http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/497/497%20pratap%20bhanu%20mehta.htm (accessed March 7, 2011).

  61. J. V. Deshpande, “Assembly Elections: Winnability Is All,” Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 46/47 (November 13–20, 1993): 2505.

  62. P. M. Kamath, “Politics of Defection in India in the 1980s,” Asian Survey 25, no. 10 (October 1985): 1049.

  63. One press report discusses the illustrative example of Sukhdarshan Singh Marar, a state politician from Punjab. In 2002, Marar angled for a ticket from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) but was refused by the party high command. He succeeded in winning elections as an independent, rejoined the SAD, but later jumped ship and moved to the Congress midway through his term. Two days after elections were announced in 2007, Marar quit Congress and rejoined the SAD, which rewarded him with a party ticket. In just five years, Marar had changed party affiliations four times. See “Punjab Polls: Turncoats Have a Field Day,” Press Trust of India, January 22, 2007, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Punjab-polls-Turncoats-have-a-field-day/articleshow/1363650.cms (accessed April 21, 2013).

  64. K. C. Suri, “Parties under Pressure: Political Parties in India since Independence,” paper prepared for the State of Democracy in South Asia project, 2005, http://www.democracy-asia.org/qa/india/KC%20Suri.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

  65. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

  66. Hasan, “Political Parties in India,” 246.

  67. Sudha Pai, “From Dalit to Savarna: The Search for a New Social Constituency by the Bahujan Samaj Party,” in Sudha Pai, ed., Political Process in Uttar Pradesh: Identity, Economic Reforms, and Governance (New Delhi: Pearson Education India, 2007).

  68. Gyan Varma, “BJP Attempts to Woo Minorities before State Elections,” Mint, April 27, 2015.

  69. Kang, “Inside Story: How Political Parties Raise Money.”

  70. Chopra, Marginal Players in Marginal Assemblies, chap. 9.

  71. Sharat Pradhan, “I Take Money for Party Tickets: Mayawati,” Rediff, June 5, 2006, http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/05maya.htm (accessed June 10, 2012); “Mayawati Admits Taking Money for Tickets,” Indo-Asian News Service, October 18, 2006, http://www.india-forums.com/news/politics/6280-mayawati-admits-taking-money-for-tickets.htm (accessed November 14, 2015).

  72. Farooqui and Sridharan, “Incumbency, Internal Processes and Renomination in Indian Parties.”

  73. Lakshmi Iyer and Subash Mishra, “Assembly Elections: Highest Bidders, Criminals, Contractors Get Tickets for Polls,” India Today, January 21, 2002.

  74. Lisa Bjorkman, “‘You Can’t Buy a Vote’: Meanings of Money in a Mumbai Election,” American Ethnologist 41, no. 4 (November 2014): 617–34.

  75. Ibid.

  76. Barman, “How Political Parties Try to Get Past EC Guidelines.”

  77. Bharti Jain, “Dry Gujarat Hit the Bottle Hard during Polls,” Times of India, December 23, 2012.

  78. Gopu Mohan, “On Madurai Poll Trail, Azhagiri’s ‘Reputation’ Does the Talking,” Indian Express, May 8, 2009.

  79. U.S. Consulate Chennai, “Cash for Votes in South India,” diplomatic cable, May 13, 2009, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09CHENNAI144_a.html (accessed January 10, 2015); Abheek Barman, “The Great Indian Election Bait,” Economic Times, April 3, 2011; P. C. Vijay Kumar, “The Men Who Dare Alagiri,” Open, April 16, 2011. The extent of the DMK’s alleged vote-buying in the 2009 Thirumangalam bypoll led to observers speaking of excessive cash distribution ahead of elections as the “Thirumangalam” model. Even the former chief election commission of India, S. Y. Quraishi, later admitted that the Election Commission was “very worried about the money power [in Tamil Nadu] because during the Thirumangalam by-election, gross violations were reported.” See Seema Chisti, “Idea Exchange with S. Y. Quraishi,” Indian Express, May 29, 2011.

  80. According to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable, Karti Chidambaram, son of then-union minister P. Chidambaram, corroborated this logic. He said that distributing money is useful in buying goodwill, but it does not necessarily win elections. What money does, he claimed, is to help “put you over the top” in a close election. See U.S. Consulate Chennai, “Cash for Votes in South India.”

  81. Interestingly, this tactic is occasionally employed in advanced democracies such as the United States. See, for instance, David Weigel, “Arizona Congressional Race Devolves into War over Hispanic Surnames,” Slate, June 12, 2014, http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/06/12/arizona_congressional_race_devolves_into_war_over_hispanic_surnames.html (accessed May 1, 2015).

  82. Kumar, Black Economy in India, 295.

  83. Madhavi Tata, “Weight Initials,” Outlook, May 2, 2011; A. Srinivasa Rao, “Congress Fields Namesakes to Queer Poll Pitch for Jaganmohan Reddy,” Mail Today, April 19, 2011; “11 ‘Jaganmohans’ Enter Kadapa Bypoll Fray,” Times of India, April 20, 2011. Similarly, in the 2014 elections for the Bilaspur parliamentary seat in Chhattisgarh, there were five candidates in the fray named Lakhan Sahu. The BJP’s Sahu was thought to be the “real candidate,” whereas the other four stood as independents, allegedly encouraged to stand for election by the opposition party. Rama Lakshmi, “Sahu vs. Sahu vs. Sahu: Indian Politicians Run ‘Clone’ Candidates to Trick Voters,” Washington Post, April 23, 2014.

  84. Several media reports suggest that printing presses do phenomenal business around election time. For a municipal election in Odisha, local presses previously reported a doubling of demand during the campaign. Binit Jaiswal, “Banners Flex Poll Muscles,” Times of India, January 13, 2014.

  85. Bharatiya Janata Party Statement of Election Expenditure of General Election 2014 (Lok Sabha), January 12, 2015, http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/mis-Political_Parties/ContributionReports/GE_2014/Bhartiya%20Janata%20Party_combined.pdf (accessed May 21, 2015).

  86. Press Council of India, “Report on Paid News,” July 7, 2010, http://presscouncil.nic.in/oldwebsite/councilreport.pdf (accessed March 15, 2014). According to one account, the report the Press Council eventually issued was heavily watered down. A leaked draft contained far more detail on the controversial practice of “paid news.” See Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and K. Sreenivas Reddy, “‘Paid News’: The Buried Report,” Outlook (blog), August 6, 2010, http://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/paid-news-the-buried-report/266542 (accessed April 1, 2015).

  87. Anuradha Raman, “News You Can Abuse,” Outlook, March 20, 2009.

  88. After the 2014 general election, the Election Commission’s media monitoring cell was able to confirm 787 cases of paid news. See Raghvendra Rao, “Paid News: EC Issues 3,100 Notices, Confirms 787 Cases,” Indian Express, May 24, 2014.

  89. In the words of M. R. Madhavan, a scholar of the Indian Parliament, “Who has access to unaccounted funds? Criminal elements. [Money] forces you into bed with criminal elements.” See Simon Denyer, “Criminals Flourish in Indian Elections,” Washington Post, March 5, 2012.

  90. Jeffrey Witsoe, Democracy against Development: Lower-Caste Politics and Political Modernity in Postcolonial India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).

  91. Trilochan Sastry, “Towards Decriminalisation of Elections and Politics,” Economic and Political Weekly 49, no. 1 (January 4, 2014): 38.

  92. Ibid.

  93. Atul Thakur, “MLA’s Fortunes Grow More than All Other Investments,” Times of India, May 19, 2011,
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br />   94. This echoes a point made in Francesco Caselli and Massimo Morelli, “Bad Politicians,” Journal of Public Economics 88, no. 3–4 (March 2004): 759–82.

  95. The winner’s premium was also higher (roughly 10 percent per annum) for winners from states in the Hindi belt or that rate poorly according to standard corruption metrics.

  96. Furthermore, the study looks at assets net of liabilities, a questionable decision since access to low-interest loans in India is conditioned by political access.

  97. Chopra, Marginal Players in Marginal Assemblies, chap. 8.

  98. Banerjee, “Politics sans Ideology,” 1204.

  99. Caselli and Morelli, “Bad Politicians.”

  100. Chopra, Marginal Players in Marginal Assemblies, 329.

  101. Banerjee, “Politics sans Ideology,” 1204.

  102. James Manor, “Changing State, Changing Society in India,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 25, no. 2 (2002): 231–56.

  103. Ibid., 235. Christophe Jaffrelot remarks that, “[with] the growth in the financial outlay of politicians, money has become another major reason for collaborating with the underworld.” See Christophe Jaffrelot, “Indian Democracy: The Rule of Law on Trial,” India Review 1, no. 1 (January 2002): 100.

  104. James Manor, “Party Decay and Political Crisis in India,” Washington Quarterly 4, no. 3 (Summer 1981): 25–40.

  105. Ward Berenschot, Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).

  106. Francesca Refsum Jensenius, “Power, Performance and Bias: Evaluating the Electoral Quotas for Scheduled Castes in India” (PhD diss., University of California–Berkeley, 2013).

  107. Author’s interview with Congress MP from Andhra Pradesh, New Delhi, August 2009.

  108. Author’s interview with Bihar state treasurer of a major national party, Patna, October 2010.

  109. Association for Democratic Reforms vs. Union of India and Another (2002), 5 SCC 294.

  110. Representation of the People (Amendment) Ordinance, August 24, 2002, http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/ElectoralLaws/OrdersNotifications/Ordinance_Asset_Liabilities.pdf (accessed April 20, 2016).

  111. People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Another vs. Union of India and Another, AIR (2003) SC 2363. For a review, see Ronojoy Sen, “Identifying Criminals and Crorepatis in Indian Politics: An Analysis of Two Supreme Court Rulings,” Election Law Journal 11, no. 2 (June 2012): 216–25.

  112. In addition, the database contains information on 226 members of the Rajya Sabha, as of 2010.

  113. Data from http://myneta.info.

  114. Samuel Paul and M. Vivekananda, “Holding a Mirror to the New Lok Sabha,” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 45 (November 6–12, 2004): 4927–34.

  115. The graph of predicted probabilities was derived from a multilevel logistic regression of a binary measure of a candidate’s serious criminality status on candidate wealth, in addition to other candidate and constituency characteristics. The model also included random effects parameters for administrative districts, states and years. More detail can be found in Milan Vaishnav, “The Market for Criminality: Money, Muscle, and Elections in India” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2012).

  116. The graph depicts predicted probabilities of a multilevel logistic regression of a binary measure of electoral victory as the outcome of interest with wealth, criminality status, and their interaction as the primary independent variables of interest. The regression also controls for various candidate and constituency characteristics and includes random effects parameters for districts, states, and years.

  117. Yogendra Yadav, “The Paradox of Political Representation,” Seminar 586 (June 2008), http://www.india-seminar.com/2008/586/586_yogendra_yadav.htm (accessed July 10, 2012).

  118. Aman Malik, “The Business Interests of Kamal Nath,” Mint, April 15, 2014.

  119. Vaishnav, “Votes for Crooks and Cricket Stars.”

  CHAPTER 5. DOING GOOD BY DOING BAD

  1. “Anant Cousin Killed,” Telegraph (Calcutta), January 9, 2008.

  2. Anand S. T. Das, “All Crime and No Punishment,” Tehelka, December 1, 2007.

  3. Chinki Sinha, “The Don of Mokama,” Open, March 29, 2014.

  4. Arun Kumar, “MLA Had a Penchant for Guns and Goons,” Hindustan Times, November 2, 2007.

  5. Sinha, “Don of Mokama.”

  6. Ibid.

  7. Residents of Mokama repeatedly told me that as long as Anant Singh held elected office, few locals would knowingly take the risk of crossing him in open court.

  8. Ashish Sinha, “Guns, Dance & Power Play—Cops Recall Brush with Mokama Strongman,” Telegraph (Calcutta), May 1, 2006; Das, “All Crime and No Punishment.”

  9. That Nitish Kumar backed Anant Singh was without doubt. As with most political parties in India, the party leader is the one who controls party ticket selection. It strains credulity that Singh would have received a party ticket if Kumar had opposed it. Furthermore, Kumar’s reliance on Singh for mobilizing and delivering votes, especially those of upper-caste Bhumihars, in eastern Patna district has been well documented. Amit Rajsingh, “How Changing Equations May Finally Put a Stop to This Criminal Politician’s Career,” Wire, June 28, 2015, http://thewire.in/2015/06/28/how-changing-equations-may-finally-put-a-stop-to-this-criminal-politicians-career-4967/ (accessed November 14, 2015); Arun Sinha, Nitish Kumar and the Rise of Bihar (New Delhi: Penguin, 2011), 250; Ashok Kumar Upadhyay, “How Nitish Kumar Plays the Caste Card When It Suits Him,” Daily O, July 15, 2015, http://www.dailyo.in/politics/nitish-kumar-bihar-assembly-polls-2015-anant-singh-sunil-pandey-jdu-caste-bhumihar-yadav/story/1/5010.html (accessed November 14, 2015).

  10. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: HarperCollins, 1962).

  11. Adam Przeworski, Susan C. Stokes, and Bernard Manin, eds., Democracy, Accountability, and Representation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

  12. Ibid., 272.

  13. Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini, The Economic Effects of Constitutions: What Do the Data Say? (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003); Philip Keefer, “What Does Political Economy Tell Us about Economic Development—and Vice Versa?” Annual Review of Political Science 7, no. 1 (2004): 247–72; Philip Keefer and Stuti Khemani, “Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor: Understanding Political Incentives for Providing Public Services,” World Bank Research Observer 20, no. 1 (March 2005): 1–27; Philip Keefer and Razvan Vlaicu, “Democracy, Credibility, and Clientelism,” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 24, no. 2 (December 2008): 371–406.

  14. For a recent review of the literature, see Rohini Pande, “Can Informed Voters Enforce Better Governance? Experiments in Low-Income Democracies,” Annual Review of Economics 3 (2011): 215–37.

  15. Timothy Besley, “Political Selection,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 43–60; Timothy Besley, Principled Agents? The Political Economy of Good Government (London: Oxford University Press, 2006).

  16. Alícia Adserà, Carles Boix, and Mark Payne, “Are You Being Served? Political Accountability and Quality of Government,” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 19, no. 2 (2003): 448.

  17. Jeremy Bentham, The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham: Political Tactics, ed. Michael James, Cyprian Blamires, and Catherine Pease-Watkin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 29.

  18. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 180.

  19. Timothy Besley and Robin Burgess, “The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, no. 4 (2002): 1415–51.

  20. David Strömberg, “Radio’s Impact on Public Spending,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 1 (2004), 189–221.

  21. Claudio Ferraz and Federico Finan, “Exposing Corrupt Politicians: The Effects of Brazil’s Publicly Released Audits on Electoral Outcomes,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, no. 2 (2008): 703–45.

&
nbsp; 22. Eric C. C. Chang, Miriam A. Golden, and Seth J. Hill, “Legislative Malfeasance and Political Accountability,” World Politics 62, no. 2 (April 2010): 177–220.

  23. Center for the Study of Developing Societies, India National Election Study 2014 (New Delhi: CSDS, 2014).

  24. Two leading social activists wrote in 2004 that government authorities were doing a poor job of publicizing the affidavits and had not made them accessible enough to the average voter. See Samuel Paul and M. Vivekananda, “Holding a Mirror to the New Lok Sabha,” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 45 (November 6–12, 2004): 4927.

  25. Benjamin A. Olken, “Corruption Perceptions vs. Corruption Reality,” Journal of Public Economics 93, no. 7–8 (August 2009): 950–64.

  26. The information richness of rural life often contrasts with the realities of urban settings, where residents are less likely to know their neighbors or to have time to interact with fellow residents and discuss politics. One piece of suggestive evidence in this regard comes from survey data I collected in Bihar. The survey found that voters who are poorer, less educated, and live in rural areas are significantly more likely to accurately identify the caste of the candidate they supported in state elections. See Milan Vaishnav, “Ethnic Identifiability: Evidence from a Survey of Indian Voters,” unpublished paper (on file with author), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2015. For a historical perspective on the pervasiveness of information flows in developing societies, see Christopher A. Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

  27. Abhijit V. Banerjee, Selvin Kumar, Rohini Pande, and Felix Su, “Do Informed Voters Make Better Choices? Experimental Evidence from Urban India,” working paper, Harvard Kennedy School, November 2011, https://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rpande/papers/DoInformedVoters_Nov11.pdf (accessed April 20, 2016).