1184 Words Essay on Criminal Rulers Nexus

Those who believe that there are only three organs of the State – the executive, the legislature and the judiciary are hopelessly outdated in their general awareness. Of late, a fourth organ has emerged in the society. It is not the print and visual media it is the irresistible mafia. The first three organs are inter-dependent to some extent; the fourth interacts with the first three on its own terms and conditions.

It can capture booths for the political executive in the elections; it can kidnap M.L.A.’s to make or mar legislative majorities; it can beat or browbeat the judiciary with its muscle and money power. It appears no one working within the four walls of the law has the inclination or courage to dethrone the mafias from their unassailable position of power in the near future.

With the gradual westernization of Indian society, especially in its consumeristic orientation, acquisition of possessions and property has become a recognised mode of social mobility and respectability. Life-styles projected in films and on televisions have developed a craze for automobiles, luxury apartments and lavish entertainment. Legitimate professional or business opportunities to make big money are very few.

Most people are barred from these opportunities for want of education or expertise or finances. Their craving for big money cannot be satisfied in any socially acceptable way. Some gravitate towards the underworld life, especially if they are not inhibited by ethical values, scruples or the restrai-ning influence of a parental authority. And once they are cut off from their social mores, they become naturalised citizens of the underworld.

They are subject to the authority of a don to whom they are bound in a relation of personal loyalty. They have to do his bidding and for that they get enough compensation.

While Mafias and crime syndicates indulge in illicit distillation in smaller towns they usually engage in running gambling dens, organised satta and prostitution in big towns and metropolitan cities. In port towns they get involved in smuggling of imported goods. Some of them gravitate to narcotics and drug trafficking which hold out enormous profits. In metropolitan cities they get involved in real-estate activities forcibly occupying lands and buildings. Money laundered by them is freely used in buying favours and patronage of bureaucrats, politicians and bribing the law enforcement personnel.

Mafias usually start with a legitimate business, such as supplying goods and services to government on contract, as a front activity. This activity keeps them in touch with important government officials, ministers and M.L.A.’s. Political connections lighten their labour in maintaining elaborate public relations at various levels of departmental hierarchy. The proximity with decision makers also brings them higher profits in government contracts. In turn, they look after the comforts of the officials and ministers. They also provide the politicians, funds and musclemen at the time of elections.

Among the legal enterprises of the mafias are obtaining and executing contracts in railway and road construction, printing for big departments like Posts and Telegraph and transport services for public and private under-takings. They use their clout (and terror) to hike up the construction tenders. It is reported that some mafias engaged in railway construction work in North Indian cities have managed to corner contracts at five times of the C.P.W.D. scheduled rates as against two to three times of the scheduled rates prevalent in other parts of the country.

Other contractors are successfully barred from participating in tenders through threats or inducements. Railway officials reconcile with the irregularities in return for gratification money they receive from the mafias. The latter also help the former escape the vigilance net through their effective public relations with the top political executive and the law-enforcement agencies.

It is not to be supposed that mafia dons are despised by common man or by the society at large. On the contrary, they enjoy considerable prestige although at times it is tinged by awe and terror. Many Mafia-leaders engage in charitable activities and help the orphan and the poor. They often come to the aid of the aggrieved people when the empowered enforcement agencies of the government fail to redress their problem so much so that Mafias are being increasingly perceived as a reliable alternative to public grievance redressal machinery where government institutions fail to deliver goods due to bureaucratic inertia.

A citizen harassed by an inconvenient tenant can depend on the intervention of a prestigious local mafia to get rid of the tenant. The price he has to pay for the service of the mafia is nominal compared to the nerve-racking delays and rigmarole of legal redressals in a court of law. Mafias’s delivery-systems are characterised by promptitude and assurance. They also come in handy to neo-industrialists in obtaining quotas of coal or steel or other metals and minerals from government regulatory agencies.

They relieve citizens from the rigors of regulations implemented by a hide-bound bureaucracy and they themselves thrive on the ‘speed money’ thus obtained. It will not be an exaggeration to say that in an impersonal and undependable regime, mafias have almost become a public convenience.
Inflation is progressively eroding the purchasing power of salaried employees from lowly peons to the Secretaries to the Government. Their regular monthly income cannot guarantee them bare comfort of middle class living. While the government and even patronage in their official functioning.

People from industry and business constantly seek their favour for getting their legitimate work expedited and for flexible application of rules in cases which do not strictly conform to the prescribed regulations. For these favours, they hold out gratifications to the officials. Many succumb to these offers and enter into a relationship of mutual help with the citizen-clients.

There is but one step from relaxation of prescribed norms for monetary consideration to circumventing the regulations. The returns go geometrically for the officials when the norms of fairness and justice are flouted. This ‘pragmatic’ approach enables the officials to lead a life of relative comfort by constructing luxury apartments and acquiring sleek automobiles. By their flashy style of living, which bears no relationship with their legitimate income, they keep up the market value of civil servants quite high who can therefore attract fairly well-to-do parents to offer their accomplished daughters to them in marriage along with hefty dowries.

Mafias have not only well-oiled public relations machinery to keep themselves on the right side of the national political-elites, many of them have strong connections with the international drug peddlers, smugglers, armament manufacturers and intelligence agencies. Some Asian and Latin American countries are virtually ruled by drug mafias.

Mafias pose little threat to the present breed of rulers. Rather, they are the best friends of the unscrupulous rulers and extend to them all possible help to remain in power. Legal authorities pose no challenge to their illegal activities as the former have entered into a subservient relationship with the latter. It is only the intra-mafia or inters- mafia gang warfare which threatens their hold over under-world activities. Unless, they submit themselves to some (under-world) government for arbitration in inter- gang disputes, they may be destroyed in international wars over turf.