The dangerous appeal of the ‘generous’ criminal

Notorious bandit, poacher, and smuggler Veerappan—whose criminal activities in the forests of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu ended in 2004—would have turned 74 last month. Wanted for the murders of over 120 people, the poaching of more than 2,000 elephants, and the smuggling of sandalwood and ivory worth millions of dollars, he evaded arrest for nearly two decades. Could he have remained at large for so long without public support? Law enforcement depends on local intelligence to track criminals. What happens when sections of the public choose instead to support them? 

Though Veerappan is said to have terrorised many villagers—especially those suspected of being police informers—he also enjoyed unprecedented support. He is believed to have killed around 77 civilians “accused” of assisting the Special Task Force formed to capture him.

As early as 1989, Veerappan reportedly backed Kollegal MLA Raju Gowda, allegedly forcing villagers to vote at gunpoint. According to news reports of the period, many villagers supported him. One resident was quoted as saying, “Out of 10 villagers in the area, six would be Veerappan’s informants.” When the Special Task Force recovered an estimated 65 tonnes of sandalwood from Marthahalli village in 1990, some locals openly expressed pride: “He is a hero, one of us who has made it very big.” 

As a Tamilian in Karnataka, fresh from the anti-Tamilian sentiment sweeping the state in the wake of the Cauvery crisis, Veerappan benefited from this divide. While town populations were largely Kannada-speaking, villagers and tribal communities in the forested interiors spoke Tamil. Despite the fact that 64 of the 77 civilians he is believed to have killed were from Tamil Nadu, the average Tamil speaker continued to support him. Nearly a decade after his death, the PMK and its social base, the OBC-based Vanniyar Sangam, projected Veerappan as a youth icon at a cultural festival in Mamallapuram in 2013.

History offers other examples of criminals who cultivated public sympathy.

In November 1930, as the Great Depression gripped the United States, thousands of unemployed Chicagoans lined up at a soup kitchen opened by gangster Al Capone. This was the same man who built a multimillion-dollar empire through bootlegging, prostitution and gambling, sustained by extortion, bribes and murders. Branded “Public Enemy Number One” after the 1929 St Valentine’s Day Massacre, Capone nonetheless fed hundreds daily. Harper’s Magazine described him as “an ambidextrous giant who kills with one hand and feeds with the other.” 

The soup kitchen reportedly served 350 loaves of bread, 100 dozen rolls, 50 pounds of sugar and 30 pounds of coffee each day, at a cost of $300—a modest sum for Capone, whose gambling dens earned an estimated $25,000 a month. The Daily Independent of Murphysboro, Illinois, said, “It would be rather terrifying to see Capone run for mayor of Chicago. We are afraid he would get a tremendous vote. It is even conceivable that he might be elected after a few more stunts like his soup kitchens.” Finally, public goodwill did not save him; in 1931, he was convicted of income-tax evasion.

Then there were Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, whose string of robberies, kidnappings and murders between 1932 and 1934 turned them into folk anti-heroes. It is reported that tens of thousands viewed their bodies as they lay in state at separate funeral homes. Portrayed as rebels against an economic system that failed them, some viewed them as a couple of kids who fell into a life of crime. But Bonnie and Clyde stuck together through good times and bad, and their dedication to each other made its mark on history. They eluded the police, even hunted them down – killing as many as nine of them – but were received to rapturous reception from crowds of Americans who were furious with the government in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Their popularity surged mainly in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Louisiana, as well as in areas where they committed crimes or passed through, like Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana.

The most abhorrent of their crimes was the jailbreak of Eastham Prison Farm on January 16, 1934, when the gang succeeded in breaking out five prisoners, including their gang member Ray Hamilton. They met their end on May 23, 1934. Former Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer staged an ambush, and the couple was shot to death in their car in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Despite wanting to be buried side by side, they were buried separately. Bonnie, a poet, had written these lines about their own impending fate:

They don’t think they’re too smart or desperate; they know that the law always wins. They’ve been shot at before, but they do not ignore that death is the wages of sin. 
Some day they’ll go down together; they’ll bury them side by side. To few it’ll be grief, to the law a relief, but it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.

Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord and leader of the Medellin Cartel, which controlled as much as 80% of the international cocaine trade, had declared war against the Colombian government, seeking to outlaw the extradition of criminals to the US. He had ordered the assassination of countless individuals, including police officers, journalists, high-ranking officials and politicians. He had meanwhile invested large sums of his fortune in charitable public works, including the construction of schools, sports fields and housing developments for the urban poor; the Colombian popular class admired him as a generous benefactor. On 2 December 1993, Escobar was hit by bullets in the torso and feet and a bullet which struck him in the head, killing him. 

(The writer is an advocate in the Supreme Court and former legal advisor to the Government of Karnataka with the rank of minister)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.