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.