The Pride and Glamour of Crime in Politics

Pride and glamour of crime in politics

By Amba Charan Vashishth

As we celebrate the 60 years of Independence, one thing that strikes most is our pride in and infatuation for crime and criminals.

With one voice we, otherwise, condemn criminalization of politics. It is difficult to distinguish whether it is criminalization of politics or politicalisation of crime. We have a host of the honourable men gracing the august offices of ministers, both in the States and at the Centre, and at the same time standing as accused in courts for crimes as heinous as murder, rape, dacoity, corruption, mafia links, extortion, assets beyond known sources of income and the like.

Not only that. We have honourable Members of Parliament rubbing their heels in jails after having been convicted for crimes and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Yet, they continue to be honourable members for all intents and purposes. Recently, they exercised their right to franchise to vote for the highest offices of the country – the office of the President and Vice-President of India. No such election could be complete without their pious valuable vote

Our law is very liberal. And more liberal are our people in power whose seat of power is at stake. They argue: Everybody is ‘innocent’ till convicted by a court of law. Even though some of our honourable MPs stand convicted by courts of law for heinous crimes, yet they stretch the argument: The highest court of the country, Supreme Court of India, has not yet given the final word. Only 20 months are left for the term of the present Lok Sabha to be over and if the final verdict is not received by that time, even in prison they will continue to be honourable MPs for the full term with full pay, perks and funds at their disposal. Can we have an example of political morality loftier than that in India in any other part of the world?
And then we have the complete freedom, nay license, to play, to fiddle with the law.

Last year (2006), in the wake of the caricatures of Prophet Mohammad published by a Danish cartoonist, a Minister in the then Mulayam Singh government in UP, announced a prize of Rs. 10 crores for the head of that cartoonist. Another Indian leader announced a reward of Rs. one crore who cut the hands of renowned painter M. F. Hussain who had painted the Hindu goddesses and Bharatmata in the nude, Although both had violated the law of the land and committed a crime under the Indian Penal Code, the governments both at the Centre and the State ignored these acts of crime as a crime of no consequence. Consequently, no action was taken against anybody, not even against the UP Minister. He continued to be in office till the last.

Now the latest. Controversial Bangladeshi writer, Tasleema Nasreen, was in Hyderabad, on August 9 for the release of Telgu translation of her novels at a private function in the Press Club. The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) MLAs, alongwith others barged into the function and assaulted Ms Nasreen who has earned the ire of fundamentalist Muslims for the crime of her availing herself of the freedom of expression. The Andhra Pradesh (AP) Police was kind enough to register cases against these people, arrest them and immediately let them off on bail. The writer was bundled back in a Kolkata bound airline.

The Police have not taken note of the brazen declaration of Mr. Akbaruddin Owaisi, the leader of MIM in AP Assembly that “it is legitimate to kill Tasleema Nasreen under Islamic law, but unfortunately we couldn’t do it”. Read this statement with the statement of Ms. Nasreen, "I saw death yesterday (August 9 at Hyderabad). They would have killed me," Taslima Nasreen stated at Kolkata. But the perpetrators of the attack on her are not booked for the crime of attempt to murder. On the contrary, a criminal case for inciting animosity between different groups by her writings has been registered against the beleaguered writer.

There is an element of glamour, too, in life and politics of crime. Look at the headlines they created, the special exclusive stories they inspired and generated. Yesterday’s dacoit queen made it to the honourable desks of Parliament, rubbing shoulders with the elite of parliamentarians who claim they never violated even a minor traffic law in their life and who refrain from killing a fly even.

The late dacoit king Abhay Gurjar before being shot down in a police encounter had given out his political ambitions to journalists to fight an election, courtesy the Samajwadi Party, to share the roll of honours with veteran parliamentarians who assiduously stuck the rule of law, principles, morality and ethics in their long career.

If Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru were tomorrow to receive clemency and wanted to fight an election, provided law permitted, there would be a beeline of chiefs of almost every political party to beseech, with folded hands, to give their party the honour to field him from a constituency of his choice to raise high the banner of secularism. It will be no wonder if he knocked down the mightiest of the mighty who had so far taken pride of having been the winner in every election.


On the eve of UP elections, even the mafia don Abu Salem facing numerous charges of heinous crimes in courts was toying with the idea to contest UP polls from his home constituency. Somehow the plan got derailed.

We have numerous representatives of the people in the State assemblies and Parliament who were so ‘popular’ that they won hands down from behind the bars. While our prime ministers, chief ministers, ministers and veteran parliamentarians have to toil hard to beg votes, for those in jails the votes come voluntarily without an effort. Even after election, they hold their public durbars in prison. Government officials meet them in jails to seek their directions/guidance to executive schemes of public welfare.

It will be no wonder if the mafia dons, like Dawood Ibrahim, hiding themselves in ‘friendly’ countries from the clutches of Indian law, also get infatuated by the beauty of power and they also fight elections, even if from behind the bars, and get elected, like many others.

The hard reality of the present political scenario is that many of our elected representatives have been alternating between attending to their duties in legislative bodies, in courts and in prisons.

In fact, during the last sixty years we have developed two perceptions of law and its violation – one for those who are not in politics and the other for those who are in politics. If a person in the street is booked for a crime, whether a petty or heinous, he is instantly taken to be a criminal till declared innocent by a court of law. On the contrary, if a politician is booked, even for a heinous crime, he is taken be to be ‘innocent’ even after conviction by a lower court till his conviction is upheld by the Supreme Court of India.

A person is a diehard criminal attracting police ire and people’s hate till he is solely in the business of crime. The moment he jumps into politics also, he acquires a halo of respectability and awe. Police and people try to look the other way to feign ignorance of his (criminal) activities. They are realistic not to ignore the possibility of tomorrow his being their minister and boss. Therefore, they perform their duty only when they cannot but act or try to appear to be acting, unwillingly and under pressure though. The administrative and police action then becomes a political vendetta of his opponents, jealous of his popularity among the masses – an act aimed at character assassination, politically motivated.

Normally for a criminal, his act(s) of crime walk ahead of him. He is first a criminal and then a person. But the moment he embraces the ‘respectable’ profession of politics, he is taken to be a politician first, a criminal afterwards. He commands awe of his authority as a politician first and the tag of being a criminal afterwards, even if police ever dare to haul him up and the courts convict him for his crime. The only problem is to say which of the two – politics or crime – is his main profession and which a side business or hobby. In the media glare of his overt political activities gets eclipsed his covert criminal deeds.

No wonder with the steady influx of criminals into politics, one day politicians get exiled from the field of politics leaving the field only for the desperadoes.***