CRIMINOLOGY OF BIHAR POLITICS
A social-bully turned hard-core criminal becomes politically successful, because he’s in great demand by all political parties regardless of their ideological stripe
Politics of Bihar could be understood more through the microscope of Criminology-Sociology-Anthropology than through the lens of political science. From one angle, caste will appear to be the main determining factor. But then, you scratch the surface a little and you will find an unadulterated motive of ‘self-interest or self-promotion’ of a political actor behind the garb of castes.
Politics may require studies of ideology, manifesto, agenda, assembly, debates etc. whereas Sociology will help you look at the players’ social connections, the groups’ culture, behavior, their relationship to crime and justice etc.
Take a look at how the sociology of crime helps us unravel the political scene: A social-bully turned hard-core criminal becomes politically successful, because he’s in great demand by all political parties regardless of their ideological stripe.
The criminal becomes a member of the State Legislature or of the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha because the innumerable loopholes in the criminal-judicial system or the frustrating corruption in the law-enforcing agencies couldn’t stop him from becoming an elected people’s representative. Then after a prolonged legal battle, if the litigants are socially strong and successful, the criminal-politician is convicted, thrown behind bars and completes his sentence. During his incarceration, in most cases, his wife, brother or son, files nomination and invariably wins the election, because “the voters could do no wrong!” They are convinced, “The criminal-politician must have deliberately been involved in criminal cases or fraud by the Class of Haves, mostly the upper or middle land-owning castes.”
Two instances from the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections presented a typical situation where the convicted criminal-politician, out of jails, had no political heir to contest in his place. (By law, a convicted criminal couldn’t contest an election, perhaps for a given period of time!). His political patron, the regional party Chief, would give tickets only to the spouse, because other male members couldn’t be trusted.
For the same reason, the JDU couldn’t have given a ticket to a gangster-turned-politician, Ajay Kumar Singh, in the Siwan 2019 Lok Sabha election. seat. The party president and the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, came up with a suggestion that Ajay should marry an eligible girl who would be rewarded with a party ticket. Kavita Singh, upon marriage, became a proxy JDU candidate for Ajay Kumar Singh and won the election with support from the BJP, its alliance partner.
In 2024, Kavita Singh was dropped by the JDU to accommodate Lovely Anand from Sheohar. Lovely Anand happens to be the wife of another Rajput don, Anand Mohan Singh.
In an identical replication of the script of the Ajay-Kavita Singh saga, Ashok Mahto, a 56 year old criminal-gangster with 17 years of incarceration on charges of murders and jailbreak, was asked by Lalu Yadav to marry, in an inauspicious month for wedding according to the Hindu calendar, so that his wife, Anita Kumari, could be given an RJD ticket from Munger. Behind the facade of Anita Kumari, Ashok Mahto, a member of the Koeri-Kurmi caste, would wage a 2024 political war against Lalan Singh, the sitting MP, a protege of Nitish Kumar and a member of the arch enemy, Bhumihar caste.
Members of the two rival social groups — the OBCs-EBCs and the Upper Castes — are supposed to battle it out for their two respective dons who are basically gang leaders always trying to add to their illicit wealth earned in the underworld sand and stone business. The paralysis in the State administration because of corruption and inefficiency always facilitates this lawlessness.
For cinema and book lovers, Ashok Mahto was the character of a Netflix series, ‘Khakee: The Bihar Chapter’ released in November 2022. The series was based on a 2018 non-fiction crime book, Bihar Diaries: The True Story of How Bihar’s Most Dangerous Criminal Was Caught, written by an involved Indian Police officer, Amit Lodha
[Originally from Darbhanga, Bihar (India), Dr Binoy Shanker Prasad lives in Dundas, Ontario (Canada). He is a former UGC teacher fellow at JNU in India and a Fulbright Scholar in the USA. Author of scholarly works including a book, “Violence Against Minorities”, “Gandhi in the Age of Globalization” (a monograph) and a collection of poems”, Dr Prasad has taught at Ryerson University, Centennial College and McMaster University. He has also been the president of Hamilton based India-Canada Society (2006-08 and 2018-20)]
