When Crime Pays Read online

  When Crime Pays

  When Crime Pays

  Money and Muscle in Indian Politics

  Milan Vaishnav

  Copyright © 2017 by Milan Vaishnav.

  All rights reserved.

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  ISBN 978-0-300-21620-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Sheba, who endured

  Contents

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  List of Abbreviations

  Note to Readers

  Part I

  1. Lawmakers and Lawbreakers: The Puzzle of Indian Democracy

  2. The Rise of the Rents Raj: India’s Corruption Ecosystem

  Part II

  3. Criminal Enterprise: Why Criminals Joined Politics

  4. The Costs of Democracy: How Money Fuels Muscle in Elections

  5. Doing Good by Doing Bad: The Demand for Criminality

  6. The Salience of Social Divisions: How Context Shapes Criminality

  Part III

  7. Crime without Punishment: From Deep Roots to Proximate Causes

  8. An Entrenched Marketplace: Rethinking Democratic Accountability

  Appendix A: Details of the Affidavit Dataset

  Appendix B: Details of Bihar Voter Survey

  Appendix C: Details of Lok Social Attitudes Survey

  Notes

  Index

  Preface

  India’s 2014 general election was the largest democratic exercise ever undertaken. On nine separate polling days staggered over six weeks, 554 million voters queued up at more than 900,000 polling stations to cast their ballots in favor of one of 8,251 candidates representing 464 political parties.

  While the numbers were overwhelming, so too was the verdict. For the first time in three decades, Indians delivered a majority of seats in the lower house of Parliament (known as the Lok Sabha) to a single political party—the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The stunning result was the product of deep-seated disenchantment with the ruling Indian National Congress (INC), whose second term in office was marked by a slowing economy and besmirched by a series of sordid corruption scandals, as well as the personal and professional appeal of former Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who led the BJP campaign.

  Modi’s record in Gujarat was far from untarnished; in the early months of his tenure, violence between Hindus and Muslims left more than 1,000 people dead, and the state government appeared either unwilling or unable to stem the bloodshed. Nevertheless, Modi’s tenure in the state was marked by a galloping economy, the fastest growing among India’s states. On the whole, his twelve-year rule in Gujarat was, in the minds of many voters, synonymous with prosperity, development, and good governance—qualities that exit polls suggested were at the forefront of voters’ minds in 2014. At a time of widespread consternation over the fate of India’s economy and the quality of the country’s administration, large sections of the electorate viewed Modi to be the right man to get India’s house in order.

  The resounding victory for Modi and the BJP, the stunning repudiation of the incumbent Congress Party, and the rhetorical emphasis on vikas (development) during the campaign led many analysts to dub the 2014 campaign India’s “good governance” election. So it was curious that the very same election produced a parliament in which one-third of its members were facing ongoing criminal prosecution. One in five newly elected members of Parliament (MPs) disclosed at least one pending case involving serious criminal charges—charges that, if a conviction were obtained, would merit real jail time.

  These facts raise a number of uncomfortable questions about how free and fair democratic elections and widespread illegality can comfortably coexist. This book addresses those questions, using the world’s largest democracy as a test case. To be clear, this nexus is not unique to India, but a thorough examination of the Indian experience can shed light on the dozens of other democracies where criminality and corruption are deeply entrenched, from Pakistan to the Philippines.

  Any explanation of complex social realities, such as the criminalization of politics, can rarely be boiled down to a single root cause. To try to simplify matters, I argue throughout the book that it is useful to think of criminal politicians existing within an electoral marketplace. As with any market, the marketplace for criminal politicians comprises both supply (politicians) and demand (voters). Of course, these factors are highly contextual, varying substantially even within a single country. To be clear, the term “criminal politicians” refers to politicians who have been named in ongoing criminal cases, even if a court of law has not conclusively established their guilt. Criminal politicians often have a reputation for engaging in illegal activity, but they may not have been convicted (yet) of criminal transgressions.

  Individuals with criminal reputations have long been associated with politics in India, but amid a changing electoral environment in which uncertainty and competition have both intensified, over time they have moved from the periphery to center stage. Once content to serve politicians, criminals gradually became politicians themselves. In taking the electoral plunge, they have not acted on their own. Just as markets feature intermediaries who match buyers with sellers, political parties have embraced and promoted candidates with criminal links, drawn to their deep pockets at a time when the cost of elections has exploded and party organizations have atrophied. Loophole-ridden campaign finance laws have been no match for the torrent of undocumented cash that those with criminal ties are able to marshal.

  Money helps grease the wheels, but voters too often have a rational incentive to back politicians with criminal reputations. In places where the rule of law is weak and social divisions are rife, politicians can use their criminality as a signal of their ability to do whatever it takes to protect the interests of their community—from dispensing justice and guaranteeing security to providing a social safety net. What the Indian state has been unable to provide, strongmen have promised to deliver in spades. What this means in practice is that voters are not necessarily blind to the predilections of the political class: many voters vote for politicians because, rather than in spite, of their criminal reputations.

  The argument I have sketched out above is not a straightforward one to make, given the sensitive nature of the issues at hand. To overcome this hurdle, this book adopts an eclectic approach, drawing on a wide diversity of rich source material from India’s complicated and colorful democracy.

  The foundation of this book is a unique database of candidate disclosures that have been submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and digitized by various civil society organizations. For those who are interested, I have made this database publicly available through my personal website. The database contains detailed information on the criminal and financial attributes of nearly 60,000 candidates from 35 state and two national elections held between 2003 and 2009. In addition, I compiled data on the 8,000-plus candidates contesting the 2014 national election to demonstrate t
he contemporary relevance of the issues presented here. The data are not perfect (I discuss some of their salient features, including shortcomings, in subsequent chapters), but they are an important source of reference material.

  Another significant source came from fieldwork in India. Between 2008 and 2014, I interacted with dozens of journalists, politicians, party officials, and ordinary voters in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, and Gujarat.

  In Bihar, I conducted fieldwork during the 2010 state assembly elections, which involved following electoral campaigns of state legislative candidates across three districts (analogous to counties in the United States). I was fortunate to observe the campaigns of several candidates with serious criminal reputations, studying the interactions that took place between candidates, voters, and political parties on the campaign trail. I also collaborated with the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) on a post-election survey of more than 2,000 voters in Bihar. As a state that has long had the dubious distinction of electing significant numbers of politicians implicated in criminal activity, the Bihar experience was central to developing the theory of criminal candidacy presented in this book. By observing subsequent elections in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, two states chosen to demonstrate the geographic reach of the crime-politics nexus, I was able to test how well the theory traveled to other settings.

  Fieldwork around the 2012 Gujarat elections also helped clarify my thinking on the role of money in politics. This research primarily consisted of interviews with academics, businesspeople, civil society representatives, election officials, and journalists. To add granularity to my thinking on the financial aspects of electioneering, I followed the campaign of an aspirant to state office in Andhra Pradesh, as the region headed for election in 2014. Throughout this period, I also made several trips to Delhi to gather additional material drawn from conversations with politicians, party workers, journalists, officials at the ECI, and several scholars and activists working on electoral politics.

  Wherever possible I have drawn from collaborative research being done with other scholars whose findings pertain to the subject matter. With various colleagues, I have been working on a number of subjects relevant to this book, ranging from an exploration of India’s election finance regime and a historical analysis of the ECI, to a survey of the social and political attitudes of a broad cross section of ordinary Indians.

  This book is also informed by a wide array of secondary source material, culled mainly from the work of scholars who have examined diverse aspects of Indian politics as well as from journalists who have pounded the pavement. As a comparative political scientist, I have looked far and wide for illuminating voices, examples, and illustrations.

  There are myriad implications of this book for India, and for democracies around the world. Unlike many countries in the West, India embarked on its democratic journey without first possessing capable institutions of governance. Whereas many advanced industrialized democracies built strong states over centuries before embarking on a process of political liberalization, India instituted universal franchise from the outset, operating under the constraints of a relatively weak institutional framework. Over time, as the stresses of political, economic, and social change have grown, the country’s institutional framework has proven too frail to cope. The resort to suspected criminals in politics has to be understood through this larger prism of the state-building enterprise—an endeavor many developing countries also find themselves struggling with at present.

  Over time, many Indian voters—faced with a state unable to service their needs—have looked to those who can. Viewed in this light, politicians with criminal records are not symptomatic of a failure of the democratic process. Instead, malfeasant politicians and popular accountability can in fact be compatible (although surely not free of adverse consequences). This means that contrary to the widely held belief that “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” raising the level of transparency regarding the nexus between crime and politics will not be sufficient to stamp out this link.

  The good news is that an understanding of this marketplace and how it behaves can help us grapple with the public policy ramifications and suggest possible remedies. In the short run, reformers must revamp how elections are funded and tackle the most egregious cases of illegality indulged in by politicians. But in the long run, there is no substitute for building up the capacity of the state to expand its writ while simultaneously taming its worst excesses. Put somewhat more provocatively, the problem with the Indian state is not that it is too big; it is that it is big in all the wrong places. Contrary to popular lamentations that India’s developmental performance remains burdened by an unruly democracy while that of its Chinese neighbor, unencumbered by the constraints imposed by popular consent, has been able to rapidly develop, India’s democracy is not, in fact, the difficulty. Rather, what India lacks is a state that can keep pace with popular aspirations.

  In India’s boisterous democracy, the debate over the role of crime in politics is raging ahead—although our understanding of the underlying drivers is still inchoate. The humble ambition of the present study is to help nudge that process along.

  Acknowledgments

  As with many first books, this one began its life as a doctoral dissertation—written for a degree in political science at Columbia University. The idea for the dissertation came from Devesh Kapur, a brilliant scholar of India, whom I am lucky to call an advisor, colleague, friend, and mentor. Even though Devesh was at the University of Pennsylvania, I cajoled him into working with me on the project. Maria Victoria Murillo had all the qualities of an ideal dissertation advisor—patience, a sense of humor, and very high standards. I am grateful for her constant willingness to exchange ideas, read drafts, and provide moral support. Despite being in high demand by his many students, Macartan Humphreys made time to share his unique insights and sharp comments.

  At Columbia, I benefited from the advice and counsel of many professors and friends. Above all, I thank Andy Gelman, Lucy Goodhart, Guy Grossman, John Huber, Virginia Oliveros, Laura Paler, Kelly Rader, Cyrus Samii, Mark Schneider, and Pavithra Suryanarayan. Phil Oldenburg is due special thanks for sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of India with me on a regular basis, as is Neelanjan Sircar for being an ever-present sounding board. Obtaining some of the data required for this book was no simple task, but Diego Fulguiera’s computer science wizardry made it much easier. Thanks also to the team at Innovaccer for additional assistance.

  Although this book began at Columbia, it took its present shape at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where I have happily spent the last four years. Carnegie’s former president, Jessica Mathews, was supportive of this project from the get-go and current president Bill Burns graciously extended that support. I owe special thanks to Ashley Tellis, George Perkovich, and Frederic Grare for providing a wonderful intellectual home in Carnegie’s South Asia Program. Molly Pallman and Rachel Osnos have been the glue (and the fun) that has kept our program humming. Along the way, I have borrowed copious brain cells from friends in Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program, namely, Tom Carothers, Rachel Kleinfeld, and especially Sarah Chayes. I am also grateful to the Carnegie Endowment for allowing me to reproduce material (coauthored with Devesh Kapur) that previously appeared in the 2014 Carnegie edited volume, Getting India Back on Track: An Action Agenda for Reform.

  Before joining Carnegie, I spent a wonderful year as a doctoral fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD). I will never have a boss quite like Nancy Birdsall, who has been my biggest champion. Thanks to Todd Moss, Michael Clemens, and Justin Sandefur for being terrific colleagues. My first stint at CGD was in 2003–5, when I had the pleasure of working with Jeremy Weinstein, to whom goes the credit and/or blame for my deciding to pursue a PhD.

  The research done for this book was made possible with the help of a large cast of characters. I consider myself very lucky to have worked with a series of excellent rese
arch assistants, beginning with Owen McCarthy at CGD and continuing with Will Hayes, Danielle Smogard, Alec Sugarman, Reedy Swanson, and Reece Trevor at Carnegie. They were equal partners in every respect. Saksham Khosla and Aidan Milliff ably helped me push this book across the finish line.

  In 2008 I was a visiting researcher with the Lokniti program at CSDS in New Delhi. Thanks to Sanjay Kumar for hosting me and to Banasmita Bora for being a wonderful guide to Delhi. The following year I spent time as a visitor with the Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi courtesy of the indefatigable Yamini Aiyar. E. Sridharan and Ruchika Ahuja of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India have been immensely helpful during my many trips to Delhi.

  Jeff Witsoe, my guru on all things Bihar, helped me plan my research there in 2010, and his work on criminality significantly shaped my own thinking. Sanjay Kumar, Akhilesh Kumar, and Sanjay Pandey were terrific guides to the local political scene. Thanks to Zaheeb Ajmal, Rakesh Ranjan, Rakesh Kumar, Mukesh Kumar Rai, and especially Sanjay Kumar of Lokniti for help with data collection. I am grateful to Howard Spodek for sharing his unique insights on Gujarat as well as Mahesh Langa, Mona Mehta, and Navdeep Mathur for their help in Ahmedabad. In Andhra Pradesh, I owe an enormous debt to the candidate described here as “Sanjay,” who allowed me to shadow him on the campaign trail. Thanks also to Sanjay’s campaign team for their cooperation.

  Many of the findings reported in this book were a result of, or inspired by, research collaborations with a number of friends and colleagues, including Reuben Abraham, Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur, Rajiv Lall, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Suyash Rai, Megan Reed, Nasra Roy, Neelanjan Sircar, Danielle Smogard, E. Sridharan, Reedy Swanson, Sandip Sukhtankar, and Mahesh Vyas. Of course, any errors found in these pages are my own.