Paper short abstract:

The degraded inner-city of Lyari, in Karachi, has been the terrain of competitive patronage politics since the early 1970s. In recent years, local "bandits" have been taking the lead and successfully traded the status of criminal brokers for that of local political patrons, if not de facto sovereigns.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1970s, the degraded innercity "slum" of Lyari is the stronghold of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in Karachi. Over the years, the PPP increasingly relied upon local "bandits" (dacoits) to maintain its hold over the neighbourhood. In turn, these "bandits" used their political protections to secure their illicit activities (drug trafficking, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, land grabbing…). More recently, the second-generation of Lyari's dacoits, starting with Rehman "Dakait", made an attempt to join the political fray on their own terms, by capturing the local state that came out of the devolution plan of 2001. While Rehman was eliminated in a police encounter in 2009, his successor, Uzair Baloch, was more successful in his attempt to trade the status of criminal broker for that of local political patron. Baloch went even further by building upon state institutions and resources to counterfeit state sovereignty. This process was epitomized by the public execution of Uzair's main rival in March 2013, through which the dacoits made a claim to the ultimate attribute of sovereign power: the right to kill with impunity.

Building upon prolonged fieldwork in various localities of Lyari and interviews with local "dons", their lieutenants and relatives, this contribution will retrace the history of Lyari's politico-criminal configurations by locating them in the transformations of mobilisation and patronage networks in the neighbourhood and Karachi at large. It will then explore the dialectics of terror and generosity informing the PAC's political project for Lyari, as well as its negotiation by local residents.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores linkages between politicians, organized crime and bureaucracy in contemporary Indian politics, and shows how these apparent linkages are socially and culturally understood in Indian everyday life.

Paper long abstract:

This research explores linkages between politicians, organized crime and bureaucracy in contemporary Indian politics, and shows how these apparent linkages are socially and culturally understood in Indian everyday life. I begin with asking why some people prefer a strongman or dabang (frightening and dominating) over a gentleman politician. Further, how does a dabang or 'criminal' visualise his role in politics? Using recent field research conducted in the 2011 and 2013 in western Uttar Pradesh, this research uncovers a complex picture of interlocking relationships between politics, crime and violence. Through a detailed life history of a strongman as well as an elected political leader in western UP, this research shows the ways in which qualities of dabangai are legitimised. A dabang politician is often serves as a link between people and the inaccessible state, and a protector and social healer. This research brings out how the categories of 'legal' and 'illegal' often not only overlap but also directly feed off each other. While efficiency and care are attached positive values, dabang persona is legitimised by idioms of caste-community, social justice, equality and rights.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to shed light on the relationship between drugs and politics in Punjab. It examines how low ranking politicians distribute opiates during elections and also at how they are indirectly involved in the trade through protection rackets.

Paper long abstract:

According to press reports, up to eighty percent of Punjab's youth is on drugs, ranging from smack, opium and poppy husk to synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. According to widespread conspiracy theories, the Indian central wants to weaken the Sikhs and prevent them from claiming their rights by getting them hooked onto drugs. This paper seeks to shed light on the relationship between drugs and politics. It examines how low ranking politicians distribute opiates during elections and also at how they are indirectly involved in the trade through protection rackets. More specifically, it looks at how Jat sarpanches and their allies mediate between lower caste smugglers, the police and the courts. While not being directly involved in smuggling my paper shows how these political brokers gain both votes and money by 'protecting' Scheduled Caste smugglers in their areas. I examine how these rackets expose smugglers as criminals while allowing powerful politicians to appear clean.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the everyday politics of businessmen in granite business and the ways they negotiate caste and political relations in a small town of the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, south India.

Paper long abstract:

Mines and quarries in India have become economic sectors regularly identified with extra legal practices, political connections and state corruption.

However the everyday making of business and the establishment/reproduction of individual/caste positions within the political and business spaces (between the town and the global economies) remain hardly explored. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a small town of Rayalaseema, Andhra Pradesh, this paper draws on case-studies of two entrepreneurs of different castes related to two major political factions: a Reddy former MLA-candidate and nephew of the high ranked police officer who became a granite quarry owner exporting to global markets; a "Dalit lawyer" (Mala) who entered into the business but failed to secure his position.

This paper examines the everyday politics of businessmen in granite business and the ways they negotiate caste and political relations in a small town of the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, south India.

Paper short abstract:

This study explores the changing relationship between formal politics and criminality in Lahore. I analyze the role of strongmen as local mediators, the ethics of illegality that underpins popular understandings of crime, and the reasons for the apparent decline in political violence in the city.

Paper long abstract:

Contrary to other urban centers in Pakistan, Lahore seems to have witnessed a relative decline in political violence over the last decade. To understand this, I explore the lives of neighborhood strongmen in the city and their enduring role as local mediators and brokers. This leads me to analyze popular narratives surrounding the figure of the criminal in Punjab, its eroding ties to the moral domain of wrestling, and the emerging forms of criminal behavior that unsettle the traditional ethics of illegality. I then document the local manifestations of organized crime and its connection to real estate while trying to account for the absence of mafia-like formations in Lahore. I relate this particular configuration to the local landscape of formal politics and to the changing strategies of the main political parties in the province. I hypothesize that the relative decline in political violence must be understood in relation to the absence of any serious political contender in Punjab. Despite long-standing internal rivalries, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) reigns supreme and seemingly does not rely on violent criminals to run the city and to gather votes anymore. This does not necessarily suggest a 'decriminalization' of politics or a weakening of patronage ties between local politicians and some of Lahore's notorious criminals. But the absence of political assassinations and thuggish tactics between political parties perhaps suggest that the PML's political supremacy and its effective networks of patronage allow it to distance itself from rough street politics and the illegal use of violence.

Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to understand the emergence and continued presence of Bahubalis (strongmen or criminal-turned politicians) in Bihar, India.

Paper long abstract:

This paper attempts to understand the emergence and continued presence of Bahubalis (strongmen or criminal-turned politicians) in Bihar in the context of intimate linkages between caste-based notions of popular sovereignty, the state institutions and the local-territorial configuration of power and dominance. To the extent that these bahubalis are also perceived as caste heroes, and succeed in garnering popular support, the official discourse on criminalisation of politics (a laVohra Committee Report, 1993) does not adequately capture the intricacies of the phenomenon. Rather than looking at them as 'anomic overflows' of an otherwise normal democratic practice, or romanticising it as instances of vernacularization of democracy (Michelutti 2008), there is a need to account for them in relation to historically constituted discourses of rights, justice, and equality that processes of democratisation have brought in.

Paper short abstract:

This paper describes a 'caste of thieves' in rural Rajasthan to argue that the alleged crisis of ‘mafia raj’ in Indian politics has little to do with the prevalence of criminal cartels in the countryside and more about the political and legal anxieties of those who claim purity from them.

Paper long abstract:

The term 'mafia' is now in wide circulation on the subcontinent. But in India it does not refer to a tightly cartelised enterprise or a syndicate, like the Sicilian, but to 'organised crime' at large. It refers to the vague sense of 'criminal' disarray in the region's politics; to a collusion of goons, business interests, policemen and government officials; to business organisations that seek to monopolise a particular trade through extra-legal and violent means (alcohol mafia, opium mafia, coal mafia). It also describes protection rackets and the variety of 'land grabbing' practices—known as the 'land mafia' (bhumi dal).

In this paper I will describe one 'mafia' which currently operates in rural Rajasthan: a caste of professional burglars and racketeers called Kanjars. I will show that groups professionally involved in burglary and racketeering have a long history on the subcontinent. But the aims of their work and the resources their work requires the support of respectable people—often the ones which 'cry wolf' most loudly of all. I suggest further that crises of 'criminalisation'—whether the alleged outbreak of thuggee and 'criminal tribes' in the nineteenth century or of 'criminalisation' and 'mafia raj' in the twenty-first—may reveal less about the prevalence of criminal cartels and more about the angst of those who claim purity from them. What this angst may be about and what imaginative monsters it may breed are crucial questions for anyone wishing to understand India's 'mafia raj'.

Paper short abstract:

When democratic elections are regular, free and fair, why do voters support politicians that are widely known to be criminals and strongmen? This paper investigates the popular perceptions and myths that surround an infamous don-turned-politician in Pratapgarh district, Eastern Uttar Pradesh.

Paper long abstract:

After the 2012 elections the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly has 403 MLAs out of which 189, or 47 %, have declared criminal cases against them. 98 of these (24 %) have been charged with serious crimes like murder and rape. Not merely a nexus between politicians and mafiosos for mutual perks and assistance, UP today sees a situation where well-known criminals themselves increasingly enter the electoral race and, crucially, succeed. Ruling from his hometown Kunda in Pratapgarh district, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias 'Raja Bhaiya' is an independent MLA who has held the food and civil supplies department portfolio in both the present and the previous (2004-7) Samajwadi Party governments. Allegedly a descendant of the former royal family of Benti, Raja Bhaiya draws upon the lineage and clout of his land-owning family, and has been winning his native assembly constituency Kunda without exception since he first ran for office in 1993. While running as an independent, Raja Bhaiya has been patronized most consistently by the Samajwadi Party, but previously also by the BJP. This support can be explained by a simple caste equation: he is a Rajput and the parties need him to gain the support of this numerically significant community. However, this equation does not explain his massive and persistent support locally. Looking beyond the electoral strategies and caste calculations of political parties, this paper will use the case of Raja Bhaiya to indicate the roles of myth, fear and fascination in the making of South Asian political leaders.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the political economy of sand mining in Bihar and the syndicate that controls it, popularly referred to as the “baloo (sand) mafia.” What is referred to with the English word “mafia” in fact reflects distinctively postcolonial forms of power that underlie the politics of caste.

Paper long abstract:

This paper, based on ethnographic research conducted over the last decade, explores the changes that have occurred in the sand mining industry in Bhojpur district, Bihar. Bihar is India's poorest state, known for criminality that increased in the wake of lower caste political mobilizations in the 1990s. Over the last eight years, a new state government shifted public discourse from caste empowerment to economic development and the state registered some of the highest growth rates in India. The resulting construction boom greatly increased demand for sand. The syndicate of powerful men who control sand mining has long been popularly referred to as the "baloo (sand) mafia." I examine what the story of the baloo mafia reveals about the changes taking place in Bihar. What is popularly referred to with the English word "mafia" - people talk about a plethora of mafias, the sand mafia but also an education mafia, cooperative mafia, fodder mafia, etc. - while evoking types of organized criminality familiar in Western contexts, in fact reflects distinctively postcolonial forms of power. The sand mafia is centered on caste-based networks that have expansive reach, intersecting with other "mafias" such as the "coal mafia" in neighboring Jharkhand. These networks exercise influence within state institutions while being grounded in local and regional territorial dominance. Examining mafia networks reveals the dynamics underlying the politics of caste and lower caste politics, in fact, can be seen as emerging in part as a reaction against a long history of upper caste "mafias."