When Crime Pays Read online

  Many others have shared their friendship, scholarship, and expertise out of the goodness of their hearts. For this, I am grateful to Rikhil Bhavnani, Jennifer Bussell, Kanchan Chandra, Simon Chauchard, Jagdeep Chhokar, Christophe Jaffrelot, Rob Jenkins, Francesca Jensenius, Madhav Khosla, M. R. Madhavan, Akshay Mangla, Govind Mohan, Irfan Nooruddin, Ananth Padmanabhan, S. Y. Quraishi, Arvind Subramanian, Tariq Thachil, Ashutosh Varshney, Steven Wilkinson, and Adam Ziegfeld.

  Some of the underlying papers upon which this book is based benefited from comments received at numerous seminars and conferences. Thanks to Taylor Boas, Miriam Golden, Christopher Haid, Stuti Khemani, Beatriz Magaloni, Peter Van der Windt, and Sanjay Ruparelia. For constructive feedback, I am grateful to seminar participants at Brookings India/University of Chicago, Brown University, Center for Global Development, Centre for Policy Research, Columbia University, U.S. Foreign Service Institute, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, New York University, Princeton University, University of Southern California, University of Pennsylvania, and World Bank 1818 Society. I also received useful feedback from participants at prior annual meetings of the American Political Science Association and Midwest Political Science Association.

  This project received generous financial support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, without which it would not have been possible. I am especially thankful for the support and advice of my program officer, Allan Song. Several institutions affiliated with Columbia University helped support this work; they include: the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science, Center for International Business and Education Research, and Earth Institute. The Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania stepped in with critical funding when it was badly needed. Finally, I was fortunate to receive a doctoral dissertation improvement grant from the National Science Foundation (SES #1022234).

  My agent, Kathleen Anderson of Anderson Literary Management, championed this book from the very beginning. At Yale University Press, it has been a pleasure to work with Jaya Aninda Chatterjee, who has been a fantastic editor. Eliza Childs provided superb guidance on the final text. I am also grateful to the team at HarperCollins India, above all Somak Ghoshal and Karthika VK.

  Two anonymous reviewers provided incisive comments on the manuscript, for which I am sincerely appreciative. Devesh Kapur, Madhav Khosla, Neelanjan Sircar, and Ashley Tellis gave all, or part, of the manuscript a thorough read.

  This book project has relied implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, on the aid and succor of close friends and family. I owe special thanks to Jatin and Jyoti Desai, Tani Sanghvi and Ajay Shah, Jasu and Indu Sanghvi, and the entire Desai-Vaishnav clan, especially Dilip and Pragna Desai and Mona and Ranjeet Vaishnav for their help in Mumbai.

  On the home front, I have been blessed to count on Chester and Saône Crocker; Rennie and Kai Anderson; and Rebecca Crocker for good cheer. Not to be outdone, my nieces and nephews, Tala, Caleb, Avey, and Milo Anderson and Ella and Rosa Sagarin, have kept me on my toes. There is not a day that goes by that I do not miss Rafe Sagarin, whose example was—and is—an inspiration. I owe a special debt to Anand Vaishnav, not least for bringing Madhavi Chavali, Kavya, and Manali into our family. My parents, Mahendra and Sukeshi Vaishnav, were good to never once to ask when my book was going to be finished.

  People say writing a book is like giving birth. While that may be true, it is no match for the joy one feels in actually bringing new (animate) lives into this world. When they finally hold this book in their hands, Asha and Farrin will hopefully understand what their dad was doing typing on his computer all that time. Their presence, along with that of my canine offspring Cleo, helped me realize that all the typing really could wait. I owe special thanks to Elisa Avalos for all of her help over the years.

  My biggest debt is to Sheba Crocker, who at this point deserves not only an honorary doctorate but also coauthorship of this book. From patiently indulging my incessant book-related babble to editing chapters and managing our lives when I had to travel, she has been a perfect partner in every respect. It is to her that this book is dedicated.

  Abbreviations

  AAP

  Aam Aadmi Party

  ABS

  Akhil Bharatiya Sena

  ADR

  Association for Democratic Reforms

  AITC

  All India Trinamool Congress

  BJP

  Bharatiya Janata Party

  BPL

  Below Poverty Line

  BSP

  Bahujan Samaj Party

  CAG

  Comptroller and Auditor General

  CBI

  Central Bureau of Investigation

  CIC

  Central Information Commission

  CPI

  Community Party of India

  CPI(M)

  Communist Party of India (Marxist)

  CSDS

  Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

  DMK

  Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

  ECI

  Election Commission of India

  FIR

  First Information Report

  FSLRC

  Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission

  G20

  Group of 20

  GDP

  Gross Domestic Product

  IAC

  India Against Corruption

  IAS

  Indian Administrative Service

  INC

  Indian National Congress

  IPC

  Indian Penal Code

  JD(U)

  Janata Dal (United)

  LJP

  Lok Janshakti Party

  MLA

  Member of the Legislative Assembly

  MP

  Member of Parliament

  NGO

  Non-Governmental Organization

  OBC

  Other Backward Class

  OMC

  Obulapuram Mining Company

  PIL

  Public Interest Litigation

  QED

  Quami Ekta Dal

  RJD

  Rashtriya Janata Dal

  RSS

  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

  RTI

  Right to Information

  SAD

  Shiromani Akali Dal

  SC

  Scheduled Caste

  SP

  Samajwadi Party

  ST

  Scheduled Tribe

  TADA

  Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act

  TDP

  Telugu Desam Party

  YSR

  Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy

  UPA

  United Progressive Alliance

  WHO

  World Health Organization

  Note to Readers

  Throughout the book, I quote prices in terms of Indian rupees. For the convenience of readers, I also express these quantities in terms of U.S. dollars, using the exchange rate (as of December 2015) of approximately 66 rupees per one U.S. dollar. Readers should be aware that this conversion does not take inflation into account, thus underestimating the present value of historical prices cited herein.

  I

  1 Lawmakers and Lawbreakers

  The Puzzle of Indian Democracy

  IN JULY 2008, New Delhi was abuzz with rumors of the impending collapse of the country’s governing coalition. In the dead of a typically sultry Indian summer, the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was staring down the prospect of a no-confidence vote over its controversial bill to strengthen civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States. If the government lost the vote—which pundits suggested was eminently plausible—it would be forced to hold early elections.

  Given the stakes and the simmering controversy over the deal, which had many high-profile detractors even from within the ruling alliance, the government feared the worst. To avoid defeat, it tur
ned for help to an unexpected source: the bowels of the country’s most notorious jails. Inside those cells sat six MPs who, though charged or convicted for serious crimes, still retained crucial votes that could tip the balance on the floor of Parliament.1

  Forty-eight hours before the vote and with little fanfare, the government furloughed six of the nation’s most prominent suspected lawbreakers—collectively facing over 100 cases of kidnapping, murder, extortion, arson, and more—so that they could fulfill their constitutional duties as lawmakers.

  One of the six temporarily sprung parliamentarians was Ateeq Ahmed, a Samajwadi Party (SP) legislator from the northern state of Uttar Pradesh with a conspicuous handlebar moustache and a penchant for safari suits. Ahmed’s alleged dalliance with crime began as a young boy when he and his friends racked up extra money stealing coal from trains passing through their Allahabad neighborhood.2 Having reportedly established his credentials as a petty criminal, Ahmed leveraged his small-time racket into a lucrative business selling railway scrap metal, intimidating rival contractors into submission in order to bag government tenders.3

  Flush with cash, an army of loyal foot soldiers, and a reputation as a fierce local power broker with limited patience, Ahmed was soon inducted into the world of politics, where he won five consecutive state elections from 1989 to 2002. Judging by the lengthy list of criminal cases in which he stood accused, Ahmed was equally proficient at running a criminal enterprise as he was conducting constituency service.4 Locals marveled at his weekly durbar (a Persian term for a monarch’s court), where Ahmed, one ear pressed to his mobile phone and the other taking in requests for constituency service, would mutter orders to his personal assistant or stenographer.5 The party headquarters in which Ahmed would hold forth often bore closer resemblance to an armory than an administrative office, the walls impressively lined with imported automatic weaponry.6 Yet Ahmed’s canny ability to efficiently process requests filed by his constituents—from covering the costs of a funeral to mediating a dispute between neighbors—earned him plaudits from constituents as well as grudging praise from many bureaucrats, whose painfully slow response times stood in unfavorable contrast.7

  When Ahmed made the jump to national politics, he sought to bequeath his local seat to his younger brother, Ashraf. A rival candidate, Raju Pal, had other designs, defeating Ashraf in a closely fought special election. The election was about gangland dominance as much as achieving political power, although one could be excused in failing to distinguish between the two. One observer euphemistically noted that “the status of a legislator would have helped both Ahmed and Pal to advance their other, not strictly, political interests.”8 Within months of the election, Pal was gunned down in broad daylight on Allahabad’s main thoroughfare. Ateeq was jailed in connection with the crime, but not before he masterminded Ashraf’s win over Pal’s widow in the next election.9

  Joining Ahmed on temporary bail in July 2008 was Pappu Yadav, of the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), whose physical stature was matched only by the length of his rap sheet.10 An imposing man fond of bragging that there was no jail in his home state of Bihar whose insides he had not seen, Yadav was once described as having “the physique of a baby elephant and the reputation of a raving, stampeding one.”11

  Yadav was an unabashed, self-styled mafia don, openly referred to by supporters and opponents as a bahubali (strongman). As a child, Yadav was largely left to his own devices; his parents were reportedly members of an obscure cult whose ritual dance involved snakes, knives, and human bones.12 Absent parental supervision, Yadav reportedly spent his free time getting into trouble: extorting local businesses, engaging in black market deals, and working as a hired gun for local gangs in Bihar’s Kosi region. Once when cops arrested Pappu after one of his many criminal escapades, the local administration made him wear a plaque around his neck that read “I am Pappu Yadav, a thief” and paraded him around town.13

  Yadav came of age at a time of great social churning in his home state, especially among the Yadavs—a populous, mid-ranking agrarian caste to which he belonged and that had long suffered in the shadows of upper-caste dominance. Buoyed by his community’s rising ambitions, Yadav sensed an opening and transitioned into politics, assuming the mantle of his caste-mates’ chief protector.14 Stories did the rounds that while Bihar was bathed in darkness, Yadav’s stomping grounds had access to a steady supply of power. With just one phone call from the strongman, community doctors would provide free healthcare to local residents.15 In Yadav’s constituency, an aphorism began making the rounds: Rome Pope ka, Saharsa Gope Ka (Rome belongs to the pope, Saharsa [a district in the Kosi region] belongs to the Gope—the latter a synonym for the Yadav caste).

  The gamble paid off. Yadav won his first election to Bihar’s state assembly at the age of 23. As his political star rapidly rose, he encountered numerous stumbling blocks, not least of which was a lifetime conviction for the murder of Ajit Sarkar, a rival politician who had the gall to run against (and defeat) Yadav in the late 1990s. Three months after Sarkar’s stunt, he was murdered in cold blood. So great was Yadav’s political base that, even after he was locked up, he successfully fielded his wife, Ranjeet, in his stead. When asked by a reporter what it was like to be married to a bahubali, Ranjeet replied flatly: “He has been in jail more than he has been in home.”16 She was not exaggerating. I once inadvertently typed “Pappu Yadav Bihar” into Google Maps (as opposed to the search engine) and was given directions to Beur Jail, the grimy high-security prison where he was serving time.

  But when Yadav’s conviction was unexpectedly thrown out in 2013 thanks to irregularities in the prosecution’s case, hundreds of his supporters showered him with flowers and handed out sweets at the gates of his prison. Upon his release, Yadav penned a tell-all memoir, Drohkaal Ke Pathik (“A solo traveler during a time of rebellion”), which documented his turbulent rise to political prominence. Political parties swooned and vied for his affection; invitations to his glitzy post-release book party in Delhi were secured by a veritable who’s who of leaders from half a dozen political parties.17 Within one year, Yadav and his wife were once more members of Parliament—the body’s only husband-wife couple. It was Yadav’s fifth election to the lower house of Parliament.

  Yet perhaps the most notorious of the jailed politicians to be given a momentary reprieve that July was Bihar’s Mohammed Shahabuddin of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), who at that point had spent more of his political career inside jail than outside it. Since his days as a sharpshooter for a local gang, which earned him the nickname “Shaahabu-AK” (in honor of his favorite weapon, the AK-47), Shahabuddin had been named in nearly three dozen criminal cases, ranging from extortion to murder and kidnapping.18 The son of a stamp-paper vendor, Shahabuddin had developed a personal animus against Leftist fringe parties whose fighters routinely targeted the landlords and businesspeople Shahabuddin was hired to protect.19 “Shaahabu-AK” was not the type to take provocations lying down. Tens of activists and workers associated with the Left disappeared or were allegedly murdered during the peak of Shahabuddin’s reign in Siwan district.20

  As his profile rose, Shahabuddin picked up another moniker: the “Saheb (or master) of Siwan.”21 Beginning in the 1990s, when he first dipped his toes into the world of electoral politics, Shahabuddin had established a parallel administration in Siwan district that functioned virtually independent of the state government. In fact, many argued Shahabuddin’s rule was the state administration. Before opening shops, business owners would seek his blessing and counsel; doctors would routinely receive instructions from the MP about the rates they could charge patients; even the police used to ask permission before moving in areas controlled by the leader. According to one account, the MP’s “phone call to any government officer . . . was a non-negotiable order.”22

  When the police finally mustered the courage to confront Shahabuddin, the result was a seven-hour gun battle that left 14 dead; Shahabuddin miraculously got away.23 Eventually the
MP was arrested and jailed, yet he managed to obtain a “medical leave,” which placed him in Siwan’s Sardar Hospital, where he enjoyed not a room or a floor but an entire ward to himself. A plaque near the front entrance of the hospital bore the words “Built by Mohammed Shahabuddin.”24

  The fear that gripped the minds of many residents when the name Shahabuddin was uttered was often tinged in equal measure with respect—especially when the leader used threats, and on occasion actual force, to whip the lethargic bureaucracy into shape. Before him, “we had only potholes in the name of a road here,” claimed one Siwan resident. “Colleges had closed because there was no money . . . doctors never turned up on time . . . but now everything works.”25 Another resident, lamenting Shahabuddin’s incarceration, said of the former MP, “He was 99 percent good, but people only speak of the 1 percent.”26 As the politician was fond of asking journalists who sought an interview with him, “Do you think I would win election upon election if I were such a figure of dread?”27

  Ahmed, Yadav, and Shahabuddin made for a colorful trio, but when they landed in Parliament the morning of the crucial no-confidence vote, they were accompanied by three more MPs who had also been passing time behind bars. This illustrious group included Afzal Ansari, jailed on murder charges for conspiring with his brother to pump more than 400 bullets into the car of a political rival; Suraj Bhan Singh, a lawmaker who was convicted for shooting a farmer with whom he had a long-standing land dispute; and Umakant Yadav, who was behind bars facing charges for forcibly occupying a parcel of land he coveted and fraudulently registering it in his name.28