crime affects

8/14/2019 Crime Affects

1/5

HOW CRIME AFFECTS NATIONAL LIFE

No criminal can take lightly the need for political patronage in running his crime

syndicate. Be they smuggling syndicates, gambling houses, narcotics dealers or plain

hoodlums, the only way to survive is to have comfortable political protection at the right

levels. The crime syndicates en revanche, pay a good percentage of their criminal gain to

the protectors. Thus, it is an arrangement to mutual advantage. The crime world also

provides hoodlums as volunteers to perform challenging tasks during the election

campaigns of their political patrons, apart from liberally financing these campaigns.

How can a politician, after he gains power with the help of a criminal, ever let down the

criminal? This symbiosis of politicians and criminals which has emerged from the extant

Indian political system is the root cause of all the complications.

The very fact that politicians are prepared to risk their reputations rather than

distance themselves from the crime world, shows how highly the world of crime is

regarded by the politicians in their scheme of things. Politics and crime have become the

tow faces of the same coin in the present state of affairs and a saying goes that there

cannot be politics without crime and no crime without politics. In the present Indiansituation, it is true that the lotus of politics can blossom only in the offal of crime.

UNIVERSALITY OF CRIME

On ultimate analysis, crime is a universal phenomenon. All living being are

criminals in varying degrees. Criminal thought is a part of the natural function of a

healthy mind as is the moral restraint that prevents the criminal thought from being acted

upon. External restraints brought about by the fear of law, custom and adverse reaction

reinforce the inner restraint to prevent the committing of crime. However, as the force of

external restraints weakens for diverse reasons and the proportion of gain to be made in

committing a crime overweighs the risks involved in the balance sheet of the operation,

the lure of crime increases and the deed is done. It is social situation which controls the


2/5

external restraints to make committing a crime an asset or a liability and thereby decides

the proliferation or suppression of crime with human nature being what it is always.

Criminals are criminals because society gives them easy openings to thus meet their

needs. Politicians love to befriend criminals rather than bring them to book because the

society they live in makes their lives comfortable with criminals as friends rather than as

adversaries. Policemen find the crime world sweeter because it is how things stand for

them. The remedy for the proliferation and endearment of crime lies in changing the

social dynamics to make crime a liability to criminals and criminals a liability to

politicians and the police. In the existing nexus of politics, crime and police, crime is an

asset to criminals and criminals are an asset to politicians and police. Criminals should

not be construed as a separate block of citizenry. They are a cross-section of people

from all fields of life who have moved beyond a commonly accepted degree in their

criminal tendencies. Criminality may be prolific in certain civilised fields like commerce

and industry in the form of tax evasion, violation of foreign exchange regulations,

hoarding etc; such crimes are generally not taken seriously in spite of the public

awareness of the crimes, with the social standing of the criminals remaining unaffected.

Government servants too come under this category of criminals because of the

unconfined corruption in public life. It is a fact that Indian public life is a vast field of

criminal activities and politicians and police, though the custodians and protectors of the

Indian public life. Form part of the crime world. However, knowledge of the

involvement of politicians and police in this nasty world stirs the public conscience, for

the reason that they are supposed to be the people on whom the public relies to save

them. But, it cannot be because they are also part of the society which makes public life

a nasty affair and nourishes it.

CRIME AND NATIONAL ECONOMY

A word about the effect of the nasty nexus between politics, crime and police on

the national economy. Unity gives strength. It is true about the nasty nexus also. The

only telos of the nexus is gain by synergy, the synergy which brings confidence and

courage to the troika in its nefarious activities, thereby inducing it to more daring and


3/5

innovative criminal activities. This results in proliferation of crime, a part from affecting

the quality of crime by opening up new avenues for operation. As the ultimate end of all

crimes in illegal gain and the incidence of crime is directly related to increase in black

money in the national economy, the proliferation of crime invariable results in inflation

and the weakening of the national economy.

More dangerously, it results in a polarisation of the society into criminal rich and

honest poor and destroys the countrys moral fabric. This increscent incidence of easy

money, material comforts and political power of the criminal rich ultimately leads to

internal strife, emeute and popular terrorism.

POLITICISATION OF CRIME

The overworld is just the tip of the real, raw world. There are more things hidden

in this world than that are seen. This is soon realised by opportunist Indian politicians

who seize the first available instance to enlist the support of criminals and underground

operators for their nefarious designs. This is turn is a god-sent benison for criminals to

restore their lost credibility and social standing with the help of their association with the

custodians of power, apart from the security and protection from the police that ensues

from the association. They promptly grab the opportunity to their advantage and show

how useful they can be to politicians in their career-promotion designs and wreaking of

personal vendettas. The experience and professionalism of criminals is handy to

politicians to execute their hasty operations without attracting the stigma attached to

them.

The vast army of criminals has become a ready resource to them for use whenever

need arises. This has given a sense of confidence and security to politicians, who are

otherwise vulnerable in their highly uncertain, challenging and competitive environment.

Often politicians have so much relied on criminals that the latter have become their most

trusted lieutenants even getting elected to legislature with their help and blessings. There

have been instances in India, where prominent politicians have refused to disown their


4/5

notorious criminal friends in public even after reaching the vertex of their political career.

This shows the sway held by criminals over politicians in the Indian situation. It is a fact

that no syndicate of organised crime in small and big cities anywhere in the world can

survive even for a day without political patronage. Ergo, all syndicates of organised crime

and their menace are the direct outcome of the internchant nexus between politicians and

criminals, indeed with the police as bystanders.

SOCIAL POLARISATION

The indulgence of the rich and powerful in crime popularises criminal activities

by bringing an aura of status to them and negating all inhibitions in the popular mind.

Society easily accepts the example of the wealthy and powerful for making an easy buck

to lead comfortable lives in the world where life is becoming increasingly difficult

because of the spurt in black money, caused by the proliferation of crime. While decent

life becomes impossible by honest methods, the need of survival forces honest citizenry

to accept crime as a way of life as the last resort. This would be where politicians,

criminals and police lead the country.

Easy money and easy wealth have a tendency to inflate. Criminals tend to spend

lavishly. This ends up in a spurt in prices of land, building and essential commodities

while honest men have to toil hard for an extra quarter. Crime begets money and money

begets more money and more money gets power, comfort and everything. In the crush,

honest man is lost forever. The ocean of criminal wealth around him which is beyond

even his wildest dreams frustrates him and ravages his sense of morality and

righteousness. It turns him violently against all human values and decency, leading him

to a world of crime and violence. It is what we saw in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam, in far

away Srilanka or even in Naxalism where it is hidden in the guise of political ideology.

It is an irony that politicians and the police, who create the demons, eat their own pies by

falling to the bullets of the grievously hurt, self-righteous, once innocent people. It is

said that even the dacoits in Chambal are symptomatic of this social and economic

malady.


5/5

It is true that crime cannot be eliminated from any society as the tendency to

commit crime is ingenerate in human nature. However, crime can be suppressed by

appropriate straints. What straints and how they are to be applied are ironically decided

by politicians and the police. If they come out of their indulgent interests to commit

themselves to their professional objectives, they can certainly save India from the present

predicament. Not that every politician and every policeman can come out to achieve this

noble task, but there certainly are noble elements yet surviving as exceptions among

them, who should take up cudgels in favour of the Indian polity and sacrifice their lives

and careers, if necessary, to make the renaissance of Indian police and Indian public life

possible. The question yet to be posed is whether the inveterate vested interests will let

these sacrifices bear fruit. Let us hope for the best.

crime affects

Documents