Descent into darkness: The politics-crime nexus

By our failure to speak the truth to power, and our inability to mobilise collective action against wrongdoing, we enable the political-crime nexus

“We are appalled,” the Chief Justice of India observed, “that a person like Vikas Dubey got bail despite so many cases.” The life and crimes of Vikas Dubey, culminating in his bizarre killing in broad daylight and the political doublespeak that has followed present a sordid tale of deceit and lies; and of how organised crime and politics have corroded the moral fibre of our democracy. It tells us in dastardly fashion, that in the marriage between politics and crime, some people lie every day. Each of the lies seems small enough and unlikely to hurt anyone, but when all the white lies gather together, they morph into a cancer that metastasises into the vitals of our society. This is not just about Uttar Pradesh, one criminal gang, or one political party. This is about our representative democracy descending into darkness.

Guilt cannot be washed. Regardless of the outcome of the criminal justice system in this case, the political parties, the police, and the politicians have to come to terms with the roles they played in this theatre of the absurd. The culpability for the violence and the deaths in this grisly episode extends far beyond the hands that were holding the guns. But equally, we as citizens need to come to terms with our own culpability. How many times have we turned a blind eye to wrongdoing and how many times have we lacked the courage to stand up for truth in our own communities, when facing amoral politicians? By our failure to speak truth to power, and inability to mobilise collective action against wrongdoing in our communities, we enable the politics-crime nexus.

Do we take this as the unfortunate fate of our democracy, or should we begin to assert how we might change this?

The animated chaos that politicians and criminals together let loose in state after state, the profound escapism in people, the explosion of criminalisation of politics -- immune to the tide of change to a modern, just and equal society -- appear to be a corruption that people still cling to in vast parts of India. As citizens, we need to grapple with the corrupting nature of power; and the politician for whom power is an end in itself. In the party system that has proliferated, the elite party leaders demonstrate the same propensities and act in similar fashion. This masculine view of power and authority relies on the criminal, justifying any number of wrongs in its name.

The widespread distrust of political parties, and their weak legitimacy, is therefore one of the critical questions in India’s democracy today. A common thread across the political class, regardless of the party in power, is the politician-criminal nexus of varying forms and degrees. Political parties, the institutions of public service, and big business nexus are arguably three of the most corrupt institutions in India, if measured by standards of transparency and ethics. Yet, this tarnished public image, reproduced again and again across political parties and governments, has scarcely made them recalibrate their moral compass.

The extent of the corrosion of public life by the politics-crime nexus is striking and, as citizens, we should be more concerned by this phenomenon than by any other problem. This does not always manifest for material benefit, but is almost always in a parasitic relationship with the State, in which the boundaries separating political corruption and organised crime blur, and the two are not just entangled but begin to feed on each other. What we now see is the complicity between political actors seeking advantages in elections or personal aggrandisement, on one side, and criminal groups seeking protection or impunity, on the other, in a relationship that is often one of mutual consent.

The consequence is that the authority, legitimacy, and capacity of the State are severely undermined; the failure to enforce the rule of law defined by a precipitous decline in its public institutions; and its security apparatus increasingly operating as a ‘state within a state’ to protect itself.

The implications for policymaking of these links between politics and crime are immense. Chief among them is the challenge of identifying and confronting disparate and sometimes little-known criminal groups and the threats they pose. But it also involves strengthening the legitimate State apparatus to enforce the rule of law, rather than serve to preserve the pre-eminence of the ruling party elite. It is important to sift the evidence of interactions between criminal networks, political parties and their avaricious and self-serving political elites. Even in the most criminalised states, criminals have limited interests in everyday political life, except when their means of income have been directly threatened.

There are three interventions that the Supreme Court must consider:

First, direct an investigation to uncover the links between criminal networks, political finance and support, and the criminal backgrounds of political candidates. A systematic effort to track the loops connecting all these elements will be crucial first steps to understand how criminal activity connects with pre-existing circuits of patronage or influence that generate mutually beneficial relations for politicians, State officials and businesses. Such a root cause analysis will require the judiciary, the election watchdog, and the intelligence agencies to work in tandem.

Second, the judicial investigation must be followed by arrests, prosecutions, jail sentences and confiscation of assets. If these consequences result, we will begin to see the rule of law being upheld, and the fear of the long arm of the law become real for criminals and complicit State officials. However, institutional and interest group resistance is bound to be greatest against such action. The best hope of making progress is if a specially appointed and autonomous investigation unit works under the directions and supervision of the Supreme Court.

Finally, the time is at hand for the Supreme Court to revisit its own 2006 order in the Prakash Singh case and crack the whip. It must examine whether the seven directives for police reforms have been implemented in their spirit or whether the states are only paying lip service.

Sadly, the apex court may be the only recourse to protect our democracy from predatory politicians and their criminal friends.

(The writer is Director, Public Affairs Centre, Bengaluru)