The word goonda has been a part of India’s socio-political lexicon for years. While it does have a definition that goes as “a violent and aggressive person who is hired to intimidate and harm people”, it is often referred to as any form of strong-arm tactics or threats issued directly by the powerful against the weak.
Ward Berenschot, a political scientist in the University of Amsterdam, in his landmark essay, ‘On the Usefulness of Goondas in Indian Politics’ writes “As local politicians need to develop their capacity to ‘get things done for voters, they need both the ‘money power’ and ‘muscle power’ of goondas to settle local issues, enforce their authority and manipulate voting.”
Sadly and indeed, the long arm of the law which keeps criminals in check has been made hostage to the wrong arms of the law. If criminals are linked to certain politicians, the State becomes lawless cannon out of control. This is when those who are elected by the people sell their hands to elements who use them to do the bidding of politicians and commit acts that politicians cannot officially do.
This can range from grabbing land through impersonation and forgery, turning a blind eye to illegal and rampant sand mining, destroying forests and hillsides for illegal constructions, intimidating people living in their homes by sending henchmen and bouncers, through a well-entrenched system, where the “goondas” are in a comfortable space with neither the law, not the lawmakers disturbing them.
The danger starts if politicians do their dirty work through criminals
When the protectors of the law and the lawmakers take the help of lawbreakers to do deeds that they themselves cannot do, society collapses and law and order and policing become a big joke. There are our brothers and sisters of our land who live with heavy hearts and a constant flow of tears. Their ancestral homes on their very land have been stolen. Many of these homeowners live abroad, leaving behind their land and family, to eke out a living and do well to get financial security and send money home to help their families.
Many such people have one day returned to see bouncers and henchmen guarding their own properties with a name of a new owner there and a board saying ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’.
Then there are rogue boats that come and destroy our rivers by illegally mining sand. Some of those on the boats carry weapons and other firearms and even fire at those who obstruct. Such shootouts have been reported. It is no secret that the sand mining mafia has hard-core criminal elements.
Now if these criminal elements have linkages with politicians, does the State have any chance?
Then let’s get to the ground reality of the drug trade. If there is an eco-system where drug importers, drug dealers, restaurant and nightclub owners have a cozy understanding and no police force in the State files cases for years, the nexus is complete. And this gets exposed when the narcotics wing of another State comes and picks up holy cows of the systems and puts them behind bars in their States.
When criminal elements are not only a support system. They ARE the system
If a veteran foreign drug dealer who has lived and done business for years is caught by the Narcotics Wing and complains about why he is getting arrested since he has already paid off the local cops, the State and its people really need to fear that criminal elements are not only a support system. They ARE the system
So why do criminals succeed? When politicians make it seem that they are helping “their” voters
Any illegal enterprise or system has beneficiaries. While powerful politicians are beneficiaries, in many cases where they build their assets and wealth, they do this to benefit a block of voters or someone who controls a block of votes. Hence there are cases where the land is not grabbed by a politician, but a group of people working in tandem to take over land illegally and sell it multiple times till a final builder starts developing the plot and starts constructions. And the politician helps with blessings and goondas.
This is a pandemic and there is only one treatment-elect good people
There is only one cure for this. Get good, honest people into the political system. Those who still see the process of politics through the lens of service and not as a business that gives steady kickbacks from land, construction deals manipulating ODPs, and other plans. Good people make good systems. The same corrupt system comes on track if good people run it.
One’s land can be rid of goondas, and with them their nexus with politicians, if one chooses right. It is the people who have to build politicians before they chose them. So, build good people. It then becomes easy to choose the right people. That is the only way to stop goondas and their unholy nexus.
