Organised crime in India

See also: Mafia Raj

The term Indian mafia refers to certain criminal organizations found in some of India's major cities.

Mumbai underworld

The first mafia element was Ayub Lala who was the president of Pakhtuk Jirga E Hind, an association of Afghani Pathan in Mumbai. Prior to 1940, there were around 13,000 Pathan in Mumbai who were mainly suppliers of commodities and services to the British. During World War II, these Pathan were instrumental in setting up several red-light districts for British military men. Indians were not allowed to enter some of the prostitute houses that only catered for whites. It was at that time that Pukhtun Jirga E Hind was formed under the leadership of Ayub Lala who was known as Ayub Baba. During his tenure he was the Don. While vacationing in Kashmir he befreinded a young boy aged around 6 years who was working as a coolie (porter). Ayub Lala brought this boy to Mumbai and named him Kashmiri. Kashmiri rapidly rose among the ranks of the mumbai underworld and eventually came to be known as Kashmiri Lala, a highly regarded title.

Kashmiri Lala held a 26 per cent stake in all of Ayub Lala's businesses. He unleashed his reign of terror by extorting money from various marwadi businessmen. His extortion activities grew beyond Ayub Lala's control. Kashmiri Lala began to extort larger and larger sums from already struggling businesses despite repeted warnings from Ayub Lala to stop. Some influential businessmen finally convinced Ayub lala to order Kashmiri Lala's murder in order to put an end to his ruthless unauthorized extortion techniques. Kashmiri lala was killed by a Sardar (sikh) assassin and this was perhaps the first high profile murder in the organised crime world in Mumbai. Soon after the murder the police came knocking on Ayub lala's door. He was taken to the crime branch of the Mumbai police headquarters and was rigorously interrogated. This was the first time Ayub had been to the police headquarters. The police were eventually unable to get anything productive out of Ayub and after they recorded his official statement, they let him go. The incident tremendously rattled Ayub and the very same day Ayub lala left Mumbai for good and settled down in Panchghani, a small resort town among the hills of the Western ghats. He eventually started a school there. When asked by his Mumbai associates to return he refused, stating "Anybody who has climbed up the staircases leading to the Police station is not fit to be a DON" as the reason. Before he left Mumbai he named Karim, one of his top henchmen, as the president of Pakhtun Jirga E Hind and awarded him the title of "lala". Karim started out as street vendor selling Tincture bottles in the Dongri neighbourhood of south Mumbai. Soon Karim Lala came to be known as the new Don. He set up organized squads to rob shipments from the Mumbai Docks. Many gangsters have started their crime filled careers by robbing goods from the Mumbai Docks. At that time haji Mastan Mirza was still a coolie. The first smuggler in Mumbai was Haji talab Hussein. After Haji talab Hussein was arrested by customs, the Arabs contacted Haji Mastan and Mastan rose to heights as smuggler and later DON in mumbai. While Karim lala and haji Mastan set up their empires in south Mumbai, Varadrajan Mudaliyar set up his kingdom at wadala stealing the goods from railway wagons. Manpower and protection men were provided to haji mastan and Varadrajan Mudaliyar by Chandrakant Alias babya Khopade who was the chief of the Golden gang in Mumbai.

The first Bank dacoity was committed by a robber Anokhelal who came to mumbai from Delhi after seeing an english movie Highway 301. he formed a gang of local goons and committed the dacoity after doing two rehersals at the bank which were not noticed by the bank staff. The movie was later banned in Mumbai. the Bank looted was The Lloyds bank at Fort area in Mumbai. Rs. 16 lakhs were looted killing the watchman of the bank. The police detected the dacoity on an information about a 10,000 rupees worth "Chaddar" that was laid at HajiAli durgah. The first of mafia elements, or syndicates, perhaps had their origins in the gambling and bootleg liquor dens set up by Karim Lala in the 1940s. He was succeeded by Varadarajan Mudaliar, a Tamil migrant who arrived to Bombay along with an influx of south-Indian migrants. The increasing restrictions placed on the Indian economy by the socialist regimes of those days gave the Bombay underworld increasingly more means by which they could expand their activities. Ramabhai Naik in 1986 gunned down supari-king Karim Lala's nephew, the dreaded Samad Khan, and paved the way for Dawood Ibrahim.

A colleague of his, who was placed in jail during the Indian Emergency (1975 - 77), Mastan Mirza, more famously known as Haji Mastan also played a key role in structuring illegal gambling as an organised business. He formed Dalit Muslim Surakhsha Maha Sangh in 1985-86. He did not know how to read or write English, Hindi or Urdu. Aslam Kiratpuri a well known journalist, gave him ideas how to speak in public meetings after which he became a good speaker. In the year 1994 he died in Mumbai.

After the collapse of the cotton mills based textile industry in Mumbai in the 1980s, many workers were left unemployed, furthering the environment for crime that already existed. Various underworld dons rose to power. As Mastan's influence in Bollywood grew, he began to produce films and cast his mistress, an aspiring starlet, into small roles. He was also known for his links with the legendary actor Dilip Kumar. During the Indian Emergency (1975 - 77) he was imprisoned. Haji Mastan become as a Muslim leader in 1984.

D-Company was formed by Dawood Ibrahim, an acolyte of Hajji Mastana, and a descendant of migrants from the Konkan coast Ratnagiri district to be specific. It was amongst the most powerful criminal organisations in the world in the 80s, with many illegal and legal business ventures under Dawood's control. His group eventually split up creating separate gang of Chotta Rajan and Vinod Kumar Sharma(Chairman) sometime during the mid-nineties due to his use of communal violence for personal gain. Where his mafia had previously been secular, it now broke up on communal lines. Soon after the Bombay riots, a series of blasts that took place in Bombay in 1993 and changed Bombay underworld completely, he was accused, both by former colleagues and the police, for orchestrating the blasts. It is thought that in an attempt to gain political support from religious radicals that would legitimise him as more than a crook, he collaborated with various terrorist organisations. This led to the fragmentation of his criminal empire when Vinod Kumar Sharma, his lieutenant, broke away and gained support of powerful right-wing Hindu Nationalist politicians. Soon after the bombings he was forced to flee the city (now renamed Mumbai) and the country.

The Indian Mafia in the meantime has spread to other parts of India and has diversified onto various activities. In Mumbai, with the adoption of new police policies, crime has been going down in Mumbai and the mafia has been forced to flee the city to safer havens. Many of its crime bosses operate from different parts of the world, controlling the Mafia within India.

Mumbai underworld today

The underworld of Mumbai, the most populous city in India and capital of Maharashtra state, is a criminal network, which thrives on extortion, drugs and prostitution. The underworld is controlled by three or four major gangs, but most of them have been on the run from law recently.

The underworld's activities are not just limited to organized crime. Many 'dons' are supposedly linked to the heart of India's entertainment industry, otherwise known as Bollywood. The main role played by the underworld is that of financing the productions, although some outfits aim to control the script content and other thematic elements of the plot.

The Mumbai underworld today does not exist as one single gang, like the former D-Company, but rather as a collection of gangs which have formed from the parent gangs' split. Some are; Chotta Shakeel and Abu Salem gang (also known as D-Company), Chotta Rajan gang, Vinod Kumar Sharma(Chairman) gang, Ali Budesh gang and Arun Gawli gang, as well as other gangs which have arisen recently.

Activities

India is a major transit point for heroin coming in from the Golden Triangle and Golden Crescent to Europe. India is also the world's largest legal grower of opium, and experts estimate that 5-10% of the legal opium is converted into illegal heroin. The pharmaceutical industry is also responsible for a lot of illegal production of illegal mandrax, much of which is smuggled into South Africa. Diamond smuggling via South Africa is also a major criminal activity, and diamonds are also sometimes used to disguise shipments of heroin. Finally, a lot of money laundering takes place in the country, mostly through the use of the traditional hawala system, although India has criminalised money laundering as of 2003.

Indian mafia in popular culture

In the 1970s and early 1980s, many of the most well-known classic Bollywood movies were based around themes of fighting criminals and corruption at a time when crime was rising and authorities were powerless. Classic Amitabh Bachchan films depicted the underworld and the protaganists attempting to overcome it, including Prakash Mehra's Zanjeer (1972), Yash Chopra's Deewar (1975), Manmohan Desai's Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), Chandra Barot's Don (1978) and Vijay Anand's Ram Balram (1980). In particular, Deewar, which Danny Boyle described as being “absolutely key to Indian cinema”, was a crime film pitting "a policeman against his brother, a gang leader based on real-life smuggler Haji Mastan", portrayed by Bachchan.

In the late 1980s, Kamal Haasan played the lead role in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, Nayagan (1987), directed by Mani Ratnam. The film was based on the life of the Bombay don, Varadarajan Mudaliar. Nayagan was included in Time Magazine's "All-Time 100 Best Films" list, issued in 2005. The Bombay underworld was also depicted in Mira Nair's Academy Award nominated Indian film Salaam Bombay! (1988). The underworld was also depicted in several other National Film Award winning films, including Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parinda (1989) starring Anil Kapoor, Mukul S. Anand's Agneepath (1990) starring Bachchan, Sudhir Mishra's Dharavi (1991) also starring Kapoor. Mahesh Bhatt's Sadak (1991) also depicted the Bombay underworld.

In the late 1990s and 2000s, the Indian mafia has been depicted in several films by Ram Gopal Varma, including Satya (1998) and Company (2002), the latter being based on the D-Company. Satya and Company both gave "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld", and displayed realistic "brutality and urban violence." Satya won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film, while Company won seven Filmfare Awards. A prequel to Company was released in 2005, entitled D (2005), produced by Varma and directed by Vishram Sawant. Varma's three films Satya, Company and D are together considered an "Indian Gangster Trilogy", comparable to the Godfather Trilogy or Infernal Affairs trilogy. Varma also directed an Indian adaptation of The Godfather set in Mumbai, called Sarkar (2005), and has more recently filmed an original sequel called Sarkar Raj (2008).

Mahesh Manjrekar's Vaastav: The Reality (1999) is another film that depicts the Indian mafia. Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday (2004) is based on S. Hussein Zaidi's book of the same name about the 1993 Bombay bombings, which involved the underworld organization, the D-Company. Vishal Bharadwaj's Maqbool (2004) and Omkara (2006) are modern-day Mumbai underworld interpretations of the William Shakespeare plays Macbeth and Othello, respectively. Farhan Akhtar's Don - The Chase Begins Again (2006) is a remake of Barot's original 1978 Don with Shahrukh Khan taking Bachchan's place in the title role. Apoorva Lakhia's Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007) is based on a real-life 1991 incident involving Commissioner Aftab Ahmed Khan and the Lokhandwala Complex. Waaris (2008) is an Indian television series on Zee TV with the Indian mafia as its background. The Mumbai underworld has also been depicted in Vikram Bhatt's Footpath (2003), Madhur Bhandarkar's Traffic Signal (2007) and Rajeev Khandelwal's Aamir (2008).

Danny Boyle's Academy Award winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), based on Vikas Swarup's Boeke Prize winning novel Q and A (2005), has also portrayed the Indian mafia. Boyle has cited previous Bollywood portrayals of the Mumbai underworld in Deewar, Satya, Company and Black Friday as direct influences on the film. The Hollywood film Shantaram, based on Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram novel, also features the Indian mafia in its storyline. The film is being directed by Mira Nair and stars Johny Depp in the lead role.

Bollywood connections

The Indian mafia is notoriously heavily involved in Mumbai's Bollywood film industry, providing films with funding and using them as fronts for other activities. Although in recent times police investigations have forced mobsters to make their activities more subtle, for most of Bollywood's existence stars openly displayed their mafia connections, attending parties with mafia dons and using their help to gain new roles.

Other cities

Muthappa Rai is one of the prominent figures in the Bangalore underworld.

See also

• Mafia Raj
• D-Company
• Thuggee
• Mumbai Encounter Squad
• TADA

External links

• FrontLine Magazine Report Volume 20 - Issue 04, February 15 - 28, 2003
• Godfather III: The Terrorist