The Gangs of India

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Those of us who are now in our mid-sixties may recall the times when the term “gangster” evoked more curiosity than dread. The reason was simple. One had seen gangsters either on the silver screen or read about them in novels, wherein mafiosi protected their turfs with guns and bombs. There was hardly any tactile encounter with one in real life. The only toughies one encountered in flesh and blood were street bullies whose tenures never lasted long enough to become a real threat.

But today, gangsters are commonplace. Even small towns in Haryana and Punjab boast of indigenous gangs who frequently hit the headlines. The most spectacular in recent times has been Goldy Brar, who reportedly masterminded Sidhu Moosewala’s murder. But these are merely examples of the problem that have become a menace to civilized society. Gun running, drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, flesh trade, gambling, illicit liquor, and murder are some crimes these gangs indulge in.

The question is, how has this menace grown to such proportions? There are no cut-and-dried answers. The symbiosis between crime and politics is one of the obvious prime causes. Big business, especially in the real estate sector, is another such factor. It all started when, in the mid-sixties, politicians started hiring goons to capture polling booths during state and national elections. Over a period, these goons decided that if they could help another person get elected, why not become netas themselves? From then onwards, gangsters – respectfully called Bahubali – entered politics in a big way. Today, every political party has history sheeters in its ranks. They become Municipal Corporators, Panchayat Chiefs, MLAs, and MPs. You don’t have to do much research to identify them. Their behaviour in public gives them away. These gangsters draw their strength mainly from the castes they come from.

There are historical reasons too. With the rise of ultra-leftists in Bihar, Bengal, and some other states, the land-owning communities felt threatened. Instead of trusting the fragile and corrupt state police, these communities pooled their resources to raise private armies. For example, Bhumi Sena was formed by Kurmi landowners in 1982, in response to the murders of several prominent landlords and political agitation among Dalit labourers by leftist groups like the Marxist-Leninists and the Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti.

Bhumi Sena operated in Bihar’s Patna, Nalanda, Jahanabad and Gaya regions. Although Bhumi Sena is more or less defunct now, another militia named Ranvir Sena, founded in 1994 and banned in 1995, is still operating in Bihar. It belongs to the Bhumihar Brahmin landlords. This Sena has perpetrated several massacres with impunity. As for Bengal, the rise of Naxalites in the sixties turned violence into an everyday occurrence. At least, until the late 1980s, Kolkata and 24 Parganas frequently quaked with bomb blasts and murders by rival political outfits. The communists and the Congressmen frequently participated in such bloodbaths. Extortion and murder had become routine. The Andhra region – which, too, had witnessed Naxalite violence – does not have gangster activities of the level witnessed in Bengal and Bihar. Gangs manned by Jats, Bishnois, Rajputs, Yadavs and Brahmins are spread all over North India, especially UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab.

Despite their daunting presence, none of these gangsters has reached the notoriety levels of the Mumbai-origin dons. They remain a class apart, India’s real mafiosi.

Karim Lala

It is believed that it was an Afghan who founded the first mafia gang in India. His name was Karim Lala. He migrated to India and settled down with his family in South Mumbai’s Bhendi Bazar in the 1920s. He worked in the Mumbai Docks for a while. Later, he joined a gang of Pathans who worked as recovery agents for Marwari and Gujrati moneylenders, landlords and business owners. Soon he became the Pathan Gang’s leader. His turf included Dongri, Nagpada, Bhendi Bazar and Mohammad Ali Road. His gang became notorious for illegal takeover of private properties, running gambling and illicit liquor dens, kidnapping, protection rackets, and contract killing. He died at 90 in 2002.

Haji Mastan

He was born in 1926 in the Panaikulam area in the present Tamil Nadu. He was eight when he migrated with his father to Mumbai from Cuddalore. He did odd jobs in the Crawford Market. He started working on the docks, where he joined a gang of gold smugglers.

Mastan joined hands with Sukkur Narayan Bakhia, a smuggler from Daman to control smuggling into Mumbai and Daman from the Persian Gulf. Mastan purchased properties at various locations in South Bombay, including a sea-facing bungalow at Peddar Road. He reigned over Mumbai for 20 long years as an infamous smuggler. Since he had a sharp eye for business opportunities, he entered the till then pristine realms of Bollywood and began producing films. This set an odious precedent for a relationship between Hindi films and dirty money, which continues to this day. Mastan believed in striking up long-term relations with persons in power, especially politicians, and people of influence, like popular film stars.

When Mrs Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, Haji Mastan was imprisoned, which proved to be another turning point in his life. Influenced by Jaiprakash Narain, he learnt Hindi and in 1981 he formed a political party named Dalit Muslim Suraksha Maha Sangh, later renamed as Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh. He died of cardiac arrest in 1994.

Varadarajan Mudaliar

Sathuvachari Varadarajan Mudaliar was born in Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin in 1926. He moved to Mumbai in 1945, where he began his career as a criminal by stealing cargo from the docks. Dharavi offered him a haven as it had a large population of poor people of Tamil origin. He expanded his activities by running extortion rackets, contract killing, kidnapping, illicit gambling and liquor dens and grabbing land. He ran a parallel justice system within the Tamil community. When his friends Haji Mastan and Karim Lala moved away from smuggling and became weak, Varadarajan became a powerful underworld don.

But soon the police started targeting the underworld. Finding Mumbai too hot for his existence, Varadarajan fled to Chennai. He died of cardiac arrest.

Dawood Ibrahim

Born in a Konkani Muslim family in 1955, Dawood Ibrahim is probably the most powerful underworld don ever who corporatised his operations. Founder of the D-Company, he is one of the most dreaded criminals in the world. Dawood started committing fraud, theft, and robbery while still in his teens. Later on, he founded D-Company in partnership with his brother, Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar. After Shabir was killed by a rival gang, Dawood expanded his operations to include gold smuggling, real estate extortion, drug trafficking, terror funding, gun-running and money laundering. When the Mumbai Police booked him for murder, Dawood fled to Dubai in 1986. The Indian Government holds him responsible for the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. To avoid extradition, he fled to Karachi. To this day, Dawood is said to be under Pakistan’s ISI agency. The United States has named him a terrorist. It has recorded reports of his syndicate running smuggling across several countries in Asia and Africa in tandem with Al Qaeda. Dawood also is reported involved in smuggling narcotics into several West European countries, including the United Kingdom. Today, his crime syndicate straddles several countries in Asia, Europe and Africa, with over 40% of its earnings coming from India.

There have been many other underworld dons who were based out of Mumbai or had a connection with Mumbai. Like, Abu Salem extorted money from actors, invested in film production, and often usurped overseas rights of Bollywood films. Tiger Memon is the prime suspect in the 1993 Mumbai blasts. Chhota Rajan, a former Dawood crony, is now engaged in a mortal battle with his former boss. Ravi Pujari became notorious for his attempts to extort money from Bollywood celebrities. Arun Gawli hit the media headlines frequently for his criminal activities.

None of these has matched Dawood.

India’s underworld has had its share of women gangsters, too. Perhaps the most notorious was Santokben Jadeja, also known as Godmother of Kathiawad. Charged with 14 murders and more than other crimes, she was the wife of a local gangster. After her husband’s murder, she took over the gang and proved to be ruthless. And yes, she was also MLA in the Gujrat Assembly during 1990-95.

Shashikala Ramesh was a milk vendor before becoming a notorious drug trafficker of Mumbai. She had amassed over 100 crores worth of property. K.D Kempamma of Bangalore was infamous as ‘cyanide mallika’. A psychopath serial killer of female temple devotees, she was sentenced to death. Later on, the sentence was reduced to a lifetime in prison. Dawood’s sister Haseena Parker, or Appa, was Godmother of Nagpada. She died of a heart attack in 2014.

If we go by the unfolding scenario in the country’s mofussil towns, religion-based gangs are fast taking over the crime world. They are petitioners, judges and executioners rolled into one, making the hapless common person’s life increasingly miserable. The police either turn into indifferent bystanders or active connivers. We have noticed this in Gujrat, UP, MP and Karnataka.

Time to stem this wave of anarchy before it turns into a tsunami.