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'.