For their part, many Bhumihars felt that only a dabangg MLA would be able to either slow down or reverse their declining dominance. “Those [castes] which have risen up now think they can be the landowners and make decisions in Mokama,” one upper-caste landowner who pledged his vote for Anant Singh lamented to me. “We used to tell them what to do, how to act. Now we are worried they will think for themselves.”80
To the extent voters connected Anant Singh with a specific policy stance in the run-up to the election, it was on the issue of land reform. During Nitish Kumar’s first term, a government-sponsored commission recommended the implementation of a new round of land reforms, including granting legal rights to bataidars (sharecroppers), which could further erode the Bhumihars’ status. Kumar never implemented the recommendations, but many of Mokama’s landed elites were nervous that he might revisit the issue if granted a second term.
Although Anant Singh is an MLA from Kumar’s party, most Bhumihars that I spoke with in Mokama believed that Anant would never allow the reform to be implemented in the area, given the negative ramifications for landed Bhumihars as well as the potential positive benefits for lower-caste sharecroppers.81 “Anant is with Nitish [Kumar] and his party. But on the [land] issue, he stands with the Bhumihars. . . . He is one of them,” an unemployed Dalit agrarian laborer explained to me.
Indeed, Anant’s status as a local strongman was thought to enhance his profile with Nitish Kumar and other state leaders. Interviews with JD(U) party officials, Nitish Kumar’s associates, and several local residents indicate that Anant Singh was simply too powerful for the chief minister to deny him a party ticket. When Kumar had previously contested parliamentary elections from the region, Anant Singh was the dominant local strongman and an inevitable force for any party to contend with.82 Kumar became Singh’s patron because he believed that any candidate who allied with Anant would have a strong advantage in the region, especially among the upper castes, a constituency not intrinsically supportive of Nitish Kumar or his party.83 Thus, Kumar brought Singh within the JD(U) fold and gave him a party ticket in 2005. And when Anant won that election, rumor has it that he brought Nitish Kumar to his constituency and weighed him in gold.84 Once asked why he had embraced known criminals like Anant, Kumar bluntly retorted, “There are certain compulsions of politics.”85 Anant Singh’s status (and the respect it earned him from powerful state leaders) further reinforced the perception that he wielded enormous influence over day-to-day matters in Mokama.
“You may think of Anant Singh as evil,” one supporter stated, “but you could also call him necessary. Real evil is what the Yadavs would do to us if they had their way.” When probed further on what “damage” Yadavs could realistically inflict on Bhumihars, one local Bhumihar resident with landholdings in the taal area worried aloud about the lack of property rights protection and the possibility that, without a local strongman keeping watch, Yadavs could encroach on his land and the state would be unable (or unwilling) to adjudicate the dispute.
Yadav residents, for their part, decried Anant Singh for running Mokama as his own personal fiefdom. As one Yadav villager said, “Anant is a bahubali [strongman] and he can squeeze the system so that it gives him what the upper castes want. I say this is my land and he says it belongs to his friends. . . . I cannot win.” When asked whether the Yadavs could field their own strongman candidate, the villager waved the suggestion off: “Although upper castes fear us now, we are not in a strong enough position to counter their [Bhumihar] dominance. This place has only known one way.”
Coercion
In addition to redistribution, criminally linked politicians also wield coercion as a political tool. The introduction of electronic voting machines, the deployment of central paramilitary forces, and the expanded reach of the ECI have largely tamed the most egregious behaviors (i.e., booth capturing) come election time. By 2010 Anant Singh and his ilk were no longer able to resort to such overt forms of coercion.86 But Anant had not relinquished the use of coercive measures as an electoral tool—both to keep his supporters in line and to intimidate unsympathetic voters. Fear and coercion remained important elements of his campaign strategy, although their manifestations have become subtler in nature.
Thanks to ECI regulations and a beefed-up police presence, candidates in India can no longer openly brandish weapons while on the campaign trail. Yet strongman candidates have found new ways of projecting power, as was amply demonstrated by my interaction with Singh during his village “meeting” in Punarakh. The meeting in which I had inadvertently been made guest of honor was held the week before the election, ostensibly in order for the candidate to meet with local residents and hear their grievances.
However, it soon became clear that this meeting was more performance than substance. The village was home to a mix of castes, including many who did not belong to Singh’s traditional support base: they included Dalits, members of the Koeri and Yadav backward castes, and Muslims. The “meeting” itself lasted but a few minutes before Singh started a walking tour through the village. The tour was perfunctory: Singh raced from house to house in the village, often stopping for just a few seconds to greet residents before moving on. His interaction with villagers was kept to a minimum on issues of substance. As one reporter once wrote, “There are no nuanced conversations with Anant Singh.”87 To me, it appeared there were no conversations at all.
What soon became clear was that the purpose of Anant Singh’s visit was not to meet villagers or to discuss issues they were facing in their daily lives; rather, it was a display of force and virility. The procession of Singh and his young, male followers throughout the village was designed to send a message to villagers that Singh was the person they were to vote for if they did not want to be punished after the election. A member of Anant Singh’s campaign told me in the middle of this village walkabout that they worried this village would vote against them, which helps explain the gruff demeanor. As Singh went from house to house, several villagers shouted after him with their complaints about basic services (such as a lack of water hand pumps or shortages of electricity). But neither Anant Singh nor his minions stopped to take note of their grievances; he had already moved on to the next house. When I asked a bystander what the point of the exercise was, he replied: “He showed his face, and the message to villagers is clear: ‘You better vote for chhote sarkar.’ This message does not need words.”
The role coercion plays does raise the concern that perhaps voters do not willingly vote for candidates implicated in criminal activity, but do so out of fear of retribution. Obviously, one cannot dismiss coercion as a contributing factor; indeed, it is a tool often wielded by dabangg candidates—especially with regard to voters who are not hardcore backers—to win support.
Yet the logic of coercion is just one element of the overall phenomenon of support for candidates linked to crime. One piece of evidence in this respect is the large proportion of voters who believe in the sanctity of the secret ballot. Using data from the survey I conducted of voters in Bihar, I charted voter responses to a question about their views about whether politicians or candidates can find out how people voted in their locality (figure 5.7). More than 75 percent of respondents stated that politicians could rarely or never learn how they voted.88 The introduction of a highly secure system of electronic voting has undoubtedly reduced suspicion of ballot tampering or fraud and violations of ballot secrecy to a great extent. Furthermore, given the high degree of electoral volatility and anti-incumbency present in Indian elections, there is a substantial degree of turnover in public office, which suggests that achieving a lock on power through coercive means is extremely difficult. If this is truly the case, coercion in and of itself is an inadequate explanation for the electoral success of politicians like Anant Singh.
Figure 5.7. Perceptions of effectiveness of the secret ballot in Bihar, 2010. (Data from a 2010 post-election survey conducted in Bihar. See Milan Vaishnav, “Ethnic Identifiability: Evidence from a Survey o
f Indian Voters,” unpublished paper, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2015)
Social Insurance
A third way suspected criminal politicians signal credibility is their ability to cushion economic shocks by doling out handouts from their own coffers and providing patronage and employment to those who seek it. Indeed, the provision of social insurance appears to be a key way in which Anant Singh builds bridges with voters from other castes, particularly those who are at the bottom of the pyramid. One Kurmi (backward caste) resident sitting at a local chai stall claimed that local residents regularly gather outside Anant’s compound with their pleas for help (usually financial assistance). “You will see people from all backgrounds there: backward, forward, and even sideways castes,” he joked. “These people know Anant can help them—they do not need any official papers—and it will be done on the spot. They will owe him something, but it gets them through whatever difficulties they are facing.” In 2012 Anant himself boasted that over the years he had arranged for more than 10,000 weddings in Mokama for those less fortunate.89
This aspect of Singh’s reputation also appears to be why he is respected by many younger voters, who seemed to connect with his persona. High levels of unemployment in Bihar, and in Mokama specifically, mean that there is a vast pool of young men with an abundance of free time. These youths receive jobs working with the candidate as local fixers, often joining one of his various business interests, and provide the manual labor candidates need to contest elections.
Dispute Resolution
The final channel through which criminality signals credibility is dispute resolution. One of the greatest casualties of a weak rule-of-law system is a functioning system of peacefully resolving differences between citizens. According to data compiled by the Indian government, as of April 2016 there were as many as 1.4 million pending cases winding their way though Bihar’s courts. Nearly 17 percent of these cases had been pending for a decade or longer. The pendency of criminal cases was especially egregious: there were five times as many criminal cases awaiting resolution as there were civil matters.90 It became clear in Mokama that the absence of an effective justice system greatly enhanced Anant Singh’s position because it allowed him to use his stature to fill this legal vacuum. As one local reminded me during my time in Mokama, “Oftentimes, speedy justice is better than no justice.” Holding court at his durbar, Singh would take a call on everyday disputes that arose between citizens, hear complaints about the police, or initiate action against “miscreants.”
One popular story among locals involved a local businessman who was kidnapped by Rajput goondas. According to the story making the rounds, Singh demanded that the kidnappers release the man, and when they refused, he initiated a shoot-out and freed the man on his own. This resort to vigilante justice may have been illegal (it may even have been apocryphal), but it earned him popularity as a man who could solve problems. The relevance of a dada is somewhat heightened in Mokama given the way in which geography makes the demarcation of property rights problematic. The annual submerging of parts of the constituency when the Ganges overflows its banks creates a steady stream of complaints from locals about land grabbing or boundary disputes. Without effective courts or police in whom the citizenry reposes trust, strongman justice was at least a timely alternative solution.
Dignity and Defensive Criminality
The notion of “defensive criminality” turns out to be a critical one. By and large, supporters of Anant Singh did not view him as a “criminal” because his alleged criminal acts are either far removed from their daily lives and/or because he regularly burnishes his credentials as a protector of Bhumihar interests. Many of his closest supporters vociferously argued that the criminal label was misplaced. This echoes a sentiment I heard from supporters of several candidates facing criminal prosecution; they regularly claimed that a candidate’s alleged criminality had no negative impact on constituent interests because the notion of breaking the law does not per se conflict with the needs of ordinary citizens. Moreover, a candidate’s suspected crimes often take place outside of the constituency.91
The engineer who educated me on the difference between “murder” and “murder management” was one such voice. Of all the locals I spoke with, it was this man who launched the most vigorous defense of Anant Singh. In response to the distinction the man sought to draw about Anant Singh’s alleged activities, I pointed out that ordering a murder and carrying out a murder are both heinous criminal acts under Indian law. The engineer cut me off, waving his hands as if I did not understand; Singh, he said, was not a criminal but a “defensive” criminal. Anant does not commit offensive acts of violence against anyone, he reasoned. “He is known for being ruthless with his rivals in a kind of reaction/counterreaction way—but not in a brazen, terrorizing way.” Although this distinction has no legal basis, it is central to understanding the calculations of those who support Anant Singh. To them, Anant is not a violent outlaw but a CEO of a protection racket; his alleged involvement in the occasional murder is but one aspect of his administrative responsibilities.
To the extent Singh engages in criminality, the engineer continued, it is only “to counter other criminals.” When I pushed the man further on who exactly these “other criminals” were, it became clear that he was referring to Anant’s political rivals. These crimes—even if Anant were responsible for them—have little bearing or effect on an average villager’s daily life, said the man. In other instances, Anant’s defensive criminality is seen as upholding order in Mokama.
In my interviews, the characterization of Anant Singh as a “criminal” or not largely depends on caste affiliation. Across Bihar, candidates who engage in extralegal activities—and the voters who support them—rarely characterize those activities as “criminal” or even “illegal.” This would involve making a normative judgment.92 When I asked Anant’s supporters—from the Bhumihar community or an allied caste group—whether he was a criminal (apradhi), the overwhelming response was “No, but he is dabangg.” When I asked Mokama voters who were not core supporters of Anant’s of their opinion, they readily referred to the candidate as an apradhi and adamantly refuse to call him dabangg. The term dabangg carries with it a recognition of power, which nonsupporters are reluctant to acknowledge. Voters’ perceptions of who is dabangg versus who is criminal is clearly in the eye—or in the jati (caste)—of the beholder.
There is a third category of voters—those that labeled Anant a “criminal” yet still expressed support for him. These voters, who were largely from marginal communities or from lower segments of society, lack the numbers or the economic power to acquire a position of dominance themselves, but they still have a stake in which group ultimately calls the shots. Interestingly, a great many non-Bhumihar, non-Yadav voters I interviewed expressed a preference for Anant Singh in part because, in their eyes, Yadav dominance has far less legitimacy than upper-caste dominance. Although the decline in upper-caste dominance meant that old forms of feudal bondage slowly weakened, these were often replaced by new forms of oppression perpetuated by the big landowners among the upper OBCs.93 As the scholar Atul Kohli has written, the newly empowered backward castes have had a difficult time legitimizing their access to new positions of domination in the eyes of the weaker sections of society.94 The old upper-caste-dominated order had more legitimacy because of religious-cultural traditions (the upper castes were revered as “twice born,” after all) and because of routinized, well-established mechanisms of reciprocity between lower-caste subjects and upper-caste rulers.
Thus Kohli writes, “Although the scheduled castes may have been habitually subservient in the old elaborate system of traditional caste domination, they fail to see any legitimacy in this new domination.”95 Anant Singh, in this context, is seen as the lesser of two evils. “If not Anant, then who? Them [over there]?” one Dalit street vendor asked, pointing to the section of the village where backward-caste villagers resided. “I am not a friend to Bhumihars. They
do not respect me. But I do not want them [the backward castes] to run this place.”
This highlights the (often underplayed) relevance of negative voting, wherein voters do not so much choose whom they support as whom they are against. It is an issue that often crops up where voters do not have the option of voting for a fellow co-ethnic and so must make electoral decisions on some other basis.96 As such, some voters who choose to vote for candidates with criminal cases do so not because they are co-ethnic supporters but because they are choosing in their mind between the lesser of two evils.
BIHAR BEYOND ANANT SINGH
It is not difficult to paint a portrait of Anant Singh as a quintessential strongman politician who “does bad in order to do good.” By aesthetics alone, Singh does an admirable job of playing the part. The real question, however, is whether Anant Singh is representative of a larger phenomenon.
The first thing to note is that the narrative presented here jibes well with that described by others who have closely examined the crime-politics nexus in Bihar. The scholar who has done some of the best work on this subject—and to whom my own research is highly indebted—is Jeffrey Witsoe. Based on years of fieldwork, Witsoe has ably documented the social bases of support for criminal politicians that exist in Bihar.
When Crime Pays Page 23