POLITICS-INDIA: Rulers Alleged to be Backing Criminal Gangs

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Sep 28 2000 (IPS) - Events following the gun attack in Thailand on the man, who is believed to be one of India’s most feared gang leaders, have revived worries about India’s growing underworld-politician nexus.

Even as media commentators saw in the affair, more evidence of links betweeen criminals and politicians in India, some political leaders accused rivals of links with the victim of the mid-September attack in the Thai capital Bangkok.

Chhota Rajan, a so-called ‘mafia don’ from India’s business capital of Mumbai, who survived the Sep. 15 attempt on his life, was reported to be willing to return to India.

Rajan is wanted by the Indian police in connection with a series of serious crimes. According to press reports, it was Rajan’s men who, in 1998, killed Mirza Dilshad Beg, a member of Nepal’s parliament, who was said to be in league with Pakistani intelligence agencies.

But Rajan’s eagerness to come to India did not surprise many here.

“The Chhota Rajan episode goes to re-emphasise what we have known for long — that there is a symbiotic relationship between our ruling class and the underworld,” said the ‘Times of India’ newspaper.

“Politicians have used criminals to extort money from business houses to finance election campaigns, intimidate voters and rig elections while criminals have depended upon politicians to ensure that they aren’t punished,” the daily added in an editorial.

But even more than patronage from politicians, Rajan is said to benefit from the backing of Indian intelligence agencies who are said to be using him to nail Rajan’s chief foe Dawood Ibrahim.

Rajan’s former mentor, Ibrahim is another feared underworld leader from Mumbai, who is now believed to be based in Pakistan and backed by that country’s intelligence agencies.

It was Ibrahim’s gunmen who fired the shots at Rajan in Bangkok, according to news reports. Ibrahim heads the ‘D-company’, said to be India’s biggest organised crime operation.

The break-up between Rajan and Ibrahim is said to be linked to the December 1992 demolition of the mediaeval Babri mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya, by Hindu zealots.

Rajan has said in media interviews that he broke with his former gangland boss, who is a Muslim, because his conscience as a patriotic Indian and a Hindu, did not allow him to continue with Ibrahim.

Rajan accuses Ibrahim of ordering the March 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai at the behest of Pakistani intelligence agencies, in retaliation for the demolition of the Babri mosque.

The pulling down of the mosque by mobs of Hindus assembled at Ayodhya by radical affiliates of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), triggered off a wave of anti-Muslim violence across the country. Mumbai was worst-hit by the communal frenzy in December 1992 and January 1993.

The March 1993 serial explosions, which killed scores of people and caused extensive damage to the western metropolis, were said to have riven the city’s underworld along religious lines.

A key regional ally of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s BJP, is also alleged to patronise Mumbai-based gangs, which are Ibrahim’s rivals.

The Shiv Sena, a radical Hindu political party, and among the BJP’s best friends, was also blamed by an independent probe into the anti-Muslim violence in Mumbai after the Babri mosque demolition.

However, the Shiv Sena accuses India’s main opposition Congress party of having links with Ibrahim’s men. Shiv Sena leaders accuse the Congress government of western Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, of backing Chhota Shakeel, who is believed to be Ibrahim’s man in Mumbai.

“Chhota Shakeel has become more powerful during this (Congress) government,” says Sanjay Nirupam a member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament), who is backed by the Shiv Sena.

‘The Asian Age’ newspaper quoted Rajan’s aide O.P. Singh as saying that the next phase of the Rajan-Ibrahim war would continue in Karachi and Mumbai and would be a “fight to the finish.”

“With the people’s blessings, Mumbaikars (residents of Mumbai) will soon be rid of the Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistani intelligence agency) agent and traitor (Ibrahim),” Singh told the daily in a telephone interview.

“Any party that speaks against Pakistan and the ISI will be backed and supported by us,” Singh added.

The latest episode in the Rajan-Ibrahim rivalry has revived demands for cleaning up Indian politics.

Earlier this year, the national Election Commission had suggested that people facing criminal charges be banned from contesting polls. But this proposal was shot down by political parties, which argued that this power could misused.

Some years ago, a popular English language newsmagazine ran a campaign against politicians with alleged criminal links, publishing profiles of some 100 poll contestants with criminal backgrounds.

India’s President K.R. Narayanan too warned of the growing proximity between Indian politicians and criminals in the annual Aug. 15 Independence Day speech by the head of state.

“Indeed, crime and violence and the links between criminals, politicians and important people in society has become almost an unholy alliance,” Narayanan lamented.

“At every social and political level there is a crying need to speak out against crimes and violence of all kinds. But even such rhetoric is absent in India today,” the president said.