Political patronage of criminals means that crimes like the one at RG Kar Hospital will continue to happen

“As the king, so are the subjects,” goes the famous proverb. It may be truer now than in the days of kings and kingdoms. Over time, the monarchy was not well-received by its subjects and we saw uprisings all over the world. In a largely democratic world order, this proverb seems to be more true today.

Systematic violation of democratic values ​​has led and continues to lead to institutionalization of anti-social elements; all in the name of opposition and dissent by political parties. The problem is not new but is becoming the new norm. Take the case of the Ajmer mass gang rape scandal of 1992.

On August 20, six Islamists guilty of mass rape of Hindu women in Ajmer were sentenced to life imprisonment. The crime, which became known as the biggest sex scandal in the country, was committed in 1992 and 32 years later, a glimmer of justice has been done. Interestingly, the main suspect, Farooq Chishti, was the president of the Ajmer Youth Congress; Nafees Chishti was the vice-president of the Ajmer Indian National Congress and Anwar Chishti was the joint secretary of the Ajmer Indian National Congress.

The perpetrators had the protection of their name – the Chishtis, the Khadims of the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, where the tomb of their ancestor Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, a Sufi saint, is located. The Congress party was linked by the Chishti family, who represent the obvious voter bank. The result? State-facilitated criminals who walked free for 32 years after raping at least 250 girls and blackmailing them with their videos and photographs.

In 2022, Gauhar Chishti, another Khadim of Ajmer Dargah from the same lineage, had threatened to behead those who insulted Prophet Muhammad. He managed to escape from the police and fled to Hyderabad. He was arrested in July 2022 and acquitted on July 16 this year.

How do criminals become political agents and get away with it? How do they find legal and political support to the extent that they do it again and again? When a state allows them to do so, among many other corrupting factors. When Yogi Adityanath uses the term ‘Mafia raj’ and ‘Goondaraj’, it is not politics, it is a fact; an ugly fact that continues to rear its ugly head even today, when the Samajwadi Party is out of power in Uttar Pradesh.

On June 2, 1995, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the late Samajwadi Party leader, was the CM of Uttar Pradesh. At Mirabai Guest House in Lucknow, Mayawati was leading a meeting of BSP MLAs to withdraw from the BSP-SP alliance in UP when Mulayam Singh sent over 200 gangsters. Casteist slogans were raised as the gangsters surrounded room number 1 where Mayawati was, while the then police chief OP Singh was seen smoking a cigarette.

Mayawati was victimized by the gangsters of the Mulayam mafia. She was beaten, harassed and eyewitnesses say that her saree was also torn. Mayawati has never worn a saree since then. How come a sitting woman politician is attacked by gangsters? Because these gangsters were deployed by the head of a state government and the entire law and order machinery was channeled to the Lucknow Mirabai Guest House.

Because crime and criminality became so institutionalized that even today the mafias are encouraged even by bulldozing them. The statement of the current SP leader and son of Mulayam Singh, Akhilesh Yadav, who tried to give Ayodhya rape suspect Moeed Khan a clean slate is an example.

Unfortunately, in the case of West Bengal, the use of criminal and anti-social elements for political muscle flexing is being done by a woman head of state. Who says that what happened to Abhaya was not a consequence of the institutionalised violence that Bengal has been witnessing for decades? Political henchmen are being used for election violence, giving positions of power to anti-social elements for appeasement politics to such an extent that cases like Sandeshkhali are allowed to happen right under the nose of Mamata Banerjee. And when the system and procedures are violated and broken as in the case of Abhaya, what does it mean but that criminal elements are being protected and by extension encouraged by the state machinery?

Just as the Chisti have been ruling Ajmer unhindered for 32 years, and just as the biggest scoundrels of SP have been escaping justice for decades and giving UP a bad name, the cadre built up under Didi’s rule in Bengal, ready to kill at the snap of a finger, especially around elections, shows how Bengal has been plunged into a perpetual state of violence.

And as long as crime and criminals continue to run rampant and thrive with political representatives at the helm of affairs, radical non-state actors will be institutionalized and seep into every social infrastructure until the concept of a state ceases to exist on the ground and exists only in theory. The cost of such a policy will as always be paid by the common man, the innocent who will bear the heaviest burden.