Organised crime in India

The term Indian mafia refers to certain criminal organizations found in some of India's major cities. The "Indian Mafia" also refer to powerful families that have criminal aspects to it.

Mumbai underworld

The first of mafia elements, or syndicates, perhaps had their origins in the gambling and bootleg liquor dens set up by a pathan Ayub Khan Pathan alias Ayub Lala. He was the founder president of Pakhtun Jirga e Hind, an association of around 13,000 Afghani nationals settled in Bombay. Although Ayub Lala was labelled a mafia don, he had not even slapped a single person during his life time, to show off his muscle power. He controlled the gambling clubs mostly owned by marwaris, muslim and gujrati operators and drug cartel including spurious liquor dens in Mumbai. Ayub Lala also owned a few KawaKhanas (a drink made from opium served with black tea) and Chandolkhanas (somewhat like hokkah parlours). He left Bombay after the murder of his own step son Kashmiri Lala handing over the reigns of all his activities to Karim lala who was earlier a vendor selling liquor at a den at Dongri in south mumbai. in the 1940s.

Varadarajan Mudaliar, who rose to be a mafia don in Bombay was most active in the 1970s with Karim Lala and Haji Mastan. He enjoyed celebrity status and there are accounts that he even helped the needy and organized religious festivals. He is also considered to be India's first celebrity criminal. The Tamil film Nayagan which is a biopic of him directed by Mani Ratnam even made it to the Time Magazine's "All-Time 100 Best Films". The film was remade in Hindi called Dayavan which was directed by Feroze Khan with Vinod Khanna in leading role as the don Varadarajan Mudaliar. Meanwhile Haji Mastan is understood to be the inspiration behind the movie Deewar which was directed by Yash Chopra with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead role as the don.

There was also a don named Rama Naik who hailed from Byculla a close associate of Bada Rajan and mentor of Arun Gavli. He reigned from 70 to 1987 when he was encountered on the behest of Dawood. Currently the biggest such underworld leader is Dawood Ibrahim and Prasanta Basunia. During his rise, Dawood Ibrahim was initially challenged by Karim Lala who eventually surrendered due to Dawood's swift and shrewd moves that resulted in also eliminating members of Karim Lala's family and his mob. Dawood was also challenged by the powerful Dholakia brothers (Mahesh and Arvind Dholakia) who masterminded the murder of Dawood's key ally Babu Reshim in a daring raid inside a Mumbai police station where Babu Reshim was detained. Following this, Dawood had both Dholakia brothers assassinated (in separate incidents) and consequently became the supreme and unchallenged underworld king of Mumbai. Varadarajan Mudaliar and Haji Mastan quit all illegal activities by that time and maintained a low key presence.

In the illegal opium trade, the earliest dated mafia family was the Thane-based (Mumbai) Thanevale gang that was responsible for over 80% of the opium and heroin trafficking in the 1860s according to an article by Harkisondas Thanawala (1965).

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 and 8–10% is consumed in high quantities as concentrated liquid. The pharmaceutical industry is also responsible for a lot of illegal production of 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.

Bangalore underworld

Bangalore’s underworld dates back to the late 1960s, when Kodigehalli Mune Gowda became the first underworld don.In the beginning he controlled all of Bangalore, and his basic revenue source was hafta(protection money) from brothels and arrack shops. In the ‘70s, Kotwal Ramachandra and Jayaraj entered the field. Wine shops, massage parlours, game parlours were added to the list. They had political affiliations.The scene changed in the 1980s and ‘90s, when young Turks entered the field like Muthappa Rai, Agni Shridhar in 1990 to 1995 Boot House Kumar or Oil Kumar, Bekkina Kannu Rajendra, Srirampura Kitty, Jedarahalli Krishnappa, Pushpa, Kala Pathar and Ele Naga emerged.

At the same time, the underworld became active, with R V Devraj <rowdy turned politician> Abu Shair, Koli Fayaz, Tanvir, Ishtiyak, Sajjad, Nazir, hibbath, Tarakari Khaleel and Chappal Hamid. Bangalore was virtually a battleground, as these operators stretched their businesses to all possible revenue earning sectors.

Bangalore's underworld scenario is very well depicted in blockbuster kannada movie Om which has been remade in Telugu as Omkaaram'. Bollywood's 1998 blockbuster Satya shares many similarities with Om, including the fact that both deal with criminal underworlds and each protagonist's name is the same: Satya. The movie is considered controversial because of its violence and the portrayal of a lot of Bangalore underworld's incidents. Many real underworld people acted in the movie, of which some convicts had to be bailed out just to act in this movie. Some of the infamous rowdies who acted in the film are Jedarahalli Krishnappa, Bekkina Kannu (Cat Eye) Raajendra, Korangu, and Tanveer.

Indian mafia in popular culture

Crime films revolving around the Indian mafia, particularly the Mumbai underworld, have been common in Indian cinema since the 1950s, evolving into a distinct genre known as Mumbai noir in the late 1990s. The genre has its origins in the 1950s, with the Raj Kapoor films Awaara (1951) and Shree 420 (1955) being some of the earliest films involving the Mumbai underworld. In the 1960s, Shakti Samanta's China Town (1962), starring Shammi Kapoor and Helen, dealt with the criminal underworld that existed in Chinatown, Kolkata, at the time. It was the earliest film to introduce the plot element of a look-alike working as an undercover agent impersonating a gangster, an idea that was used again Don (1978) and many later films inspired by it.

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 protagonists 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. Most Bollywood crime movies at the time were fairly unrealistic with the masala style of action and plots. In Parallel Cinema on the other hand, the Calcutta trilogies of Bengali film directors Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray, particularly the 1976 film Jana Aranya (The Middleman), dealt with the Calcutta underworld in a more realistic manner.

In the late 1980s, Parallel Cinema filmmakers began producing more realistic Bombay underworld films, with an early example being Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, Nayagan (1987), based on the life of the Bombay don, Varadarajan Mudaliar, portrayed by Kamal Haasan. Nayagan was included in Time Magazine's "All-Time 100 Best Films" list, issued in 2005. I The Bombay underworld was also depicted in Mira Nair's Academy Award nominated Hindi 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, and Sudhir Mishra's Dharavi (1991) starring Anil Kapoor and Om Puri.

File:Satya.jpg

Movie poster for Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1998), considered the beginning of the Mumbai noir genre.

In the late 1990s, Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1998) marked the introduction of a new genre of film making, Mumbai noir, of which he is the acknowledged master. The critical and commercial success of Satya led to an increased emphasis on realism in later Mumbai underworld films. Varma's next Mumbai noir film was Company (2002), based on the D-Company, a real-life criminal organization. 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". Varma also directed an Indian adaptation of The Godfather novel in a Mumbai underworld setting, called Sarkar (2005), and has more recently filmed an original sequel called Sarkar Raj (2008). Another film Sarfarosh, starring Aamir Khan deals with cross-border arms smuggling, and the criminal elements within India that are involved with it, including the Mumbai mafia.

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 Indian mafia 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 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 & A (2005), has also portrayed the Indian mafia, under the influence of earlier Mumbai noir films. Boyle has cited previous Bollywood portrayals of the Mumbai underworld in Deewar, Satya, Company and Black Friday as direct influences on the film. Indian mafia was widely portrayed in 2009 Bollywood's 2009 critically acclaimed film Kaminey.

Gregory David Roberts's Shantaram novel, also features the Indian mafia in its storyline.

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. It is rumoured that Dawood Ibrahim controls the film industry, and actors of other religious faiths are threatened to give way for his supporters. 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.

See also

• Crime in India
• Mafia Raj
• Mumbai Encounter Squad
• Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act
• Thuggee

External links

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