Moneypower and Musclepower in a Gujarati Locality: On the Usefulness of Goondas in Indian Politics

This article discusses the cooperation between small-time criminals (or goondas) and politicians in a locality in Ahmedabad, Gujarat (India). Based on fifteen months of ethnographic investigation, this article argues that the regular cooperation between politicians and goondas should be understood in the manner in which local politicians mediate between state institutions and citizens. As inhabitants of especially poorer localities depend on politicians to provide access to (and alternatives for) state services, political success is largely premised on the capacity to ‘get things done’ for voters. Goondas are very useful in such a political contest: local politicians need both ‘moneypower’ and ‘musclepower’ of goondas to settle local issues, enforce their authority and manipulate electoral success. At the same time local goondas need to collaborate with politicians to prevent police intervention in their illegal activities. Such cooperation sheds new light on the functioning of ‘political society’ in India, enabling the understanding of difficulties involved in policing goondas, as well as the nexus between politicians and goondas during riots. The paper concludes that the ‘criminalization of politics’ is not a sign of moral decay, but a product of the difficulties of (poorer) citizens to deal with state institutions and the specific nature of local political competition that these difficulties engender.