Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-pvkqz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-19T17:15:50.615Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Brushing with Organized Crime and Democracy: The Art of Making Do in South Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2018

Ashraf Hoque  and
Lucia Michelutti
Ashraf Hoque
Affiliation:
Ashraf Hoque (a.hoque@ucl.ac.uk) is Teaching Fellow at University College London.
Lucia Michelutti
Affiliation:
Lucia Michelutti (l.michelutti@ucl.ac.uk) is Professor of Anthropology at University College London.
Get access

Abstract

This article explores the performances of a particular category of young men often derogatively referred to as “chamchas” (sycophants) who are using the art of making do (jugaad) by exploiting and bluffing links with powerful political networks and political parties, as well as friendships with strongmen and their criminal crews. Crucially, the comparative ethnography across India (western Uttar Pradesh) and Bangladesh (Sylhet) introduces readers to the “contact zone” where legality, semi-legality, and organized criminal systems meet. In so doing, the article unravels the working of the democratically elected “Mafia Raj.”

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 991 - 1011
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

List of References

Anand, Nikhil. 2015. “Leaky States: Water Audits, Ignorance, and the Politics of Infrastructure.” Public Culture 27(2):305–30.Google Scholar
Arias, Enrique D., and Goldstein, Daniel M., eds. 2010. Violent Democracies in Latin America. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bayart, Jean-Francois, Ellis, Stephen, and Hibou, Beatrice. 1999. The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Berenschot, Ward. 2011. “Political Fixers and the Rise of Hindu Nationalism in Gujarat, India: Lubricating a Patronage Democracy.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 34(3):382–401.Google Scholar
Birtchnell, Thomas. 2011. “Jugaad as Systemic Risk and Disruptive Innovation in India.” Contemporary South Asia 19(4):357–72.Google Scholar
Briquet, Jean-Louis, and Favarel-Garrigues, Gilles. 2010. Organized Crime and States: The Hidden Face of Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed: Patronage and Ethnic Head Counts in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chattaraj, Shahana. 2018. “Jugaad (India).” The Global Informality Project. http://in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Jugaad_(India) (accessed July 10, 2018).Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L., eds. 2006. Law and Disorder in the Postcolony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean. 2016. The Truth about Crime: Sovereignty, Knowledge, Social Order. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Das, Veena, and Poole, Deborah, eds. 2004. Anthropology in the Margins of the State. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dube, Saurabh, and Rao, Anupama, eds. 2013. Crime through Time. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Falcone, Giovanni, and Padovani, Marcel. 1993. Men of Honour: The Truth about the Mafia. London: Time Warner.Google Scholar
Gambetta, Diego. 1993. The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Garbin, David. 2002. “Bideshi Taka: Argent, Migration et Politiques Transationales Entre Banglatown (Londres) et Sylhet (Bangladesh)” [Bideshi Taka: Money, Migration and Transnational Policies between Banglatown (London) and Sylhet (Bangladesh)]. Journal des Anthropologues 90–91:55–77.Google Scholar
Gardner, Katy. 1995. Global Migrants, Local Lives: Travel and Transformation in Rural Bangladesh. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Gayer, Laurent. 2014. Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City. London: Hurst.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas Blom. 2001. Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas Blom, and Stepputat, Finn, eds. 2005. Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, Migrants, and States in the Postcolonial World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas Blom, and Verkaaik, Oskar. 2009. “Introduction—Urban Charisma: On Everyday Mythologies in the City.” Critique of Anthropology 29(1):5–26.Google Scholar
Harper, Tim, and Amrith, Sunil S.. 2012. “Sites of Asian Interaction: An Introduction.” Modern Asian Studies 46(2):249–57.Google Scholar
Harriss-White, Barbara. 2003. India Working: Essays on Society and Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoque, Ashraf. 2014. “The Political Mercenary: The Emergence of the Mastaan in Bangladeshi Politics.” Working paper presented at Democratic Cultures Workshop, Arundel, Sussex.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Caroline. 1999. “Traders, ‘Disorder’ and Citizenship Regimes in Provincial Russia.” In Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World, eds. Burawoy, Michael and Verdery, Katherine, 19–52. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Rivke. 2013. “The Hybrid State: Crime and Citizenship in Urban Jamaica.” American Ethnologist 40(4):734–48.Google Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2002. “Indian Democracy: The Rule of Law on Trial.” India Review 1(1):77–121.Google Scholar
Jalal, Ayesha. 1995. Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jauregui, Beatrice. 2014. “Provisional Agency in India: Jugaad and Legitimation of Corruption.” American Ethnologist 41(1):76–91.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig. 2010. Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig, Jeffery, Patricia, and Jeffery, Roger. 2008. Degrees Without Freedom? Education, Masculinities, and Unemployment in North India. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Gareth A., and Rodgers, Dennis, eds. 2009. Youth Violence in Latin America: Gangs and Juvenile Justice in Perspective. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Manor, James. 2000. “Small-Time Political Fixers in India's States: ‘Towel over Armpit.’” Asian Survey 40(5):816–35.Google Scholar
Martin, Nicolas, and Michelutti, Lucia. 2017. “Protection Rackets and Party Machines: Comparative Ethnographies of ‘Mafia Raj’ in North India.” Asian Journal of Social Science 45(6):692–722.Google Scholar
Michelutti, Lucia. 2008. The Vernacularisation of Democracy: Politics, Caste, and Religion in India. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Michelutti, Lucia. 2010. “Wrestling with (Body) Politics: Understanding ‘Goonda’ Political Styles in North India.” In Power and Influence in India: Bosses, Lords and Captains, eds. Price, Pamela and Ruud, Arild Engelsen, 44–69. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Michelutti, Lucia. 2014. “Kingship without Kings in Northern India.” In Patronage as Politics in South Asia, ed. Piliavsky, Anastasia, 283–302. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Michelutti, Lucia, Hoque, Ashraf, Martin, Nicolas, Picherit, David, Rollier, Paul, Ruud, Arild Engelsen, and Still, Clarinda. Forthcoming. Mafia Raj: The Rule of Bosses in South Asia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pardo, Italo. 1996. Managing Existence in Naples: Morality, Action, and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Parnell, Philip C., and Kane, Stephanie C., eds. 2003. Crime's Power: Anthropologists and the Ethnography of Crime. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Piliavsky, Anastasia. 2014. “Introduction.” In Patronage as Politics in South Asia, ed. Piliavsky, Anastasia, 1–39. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pine, Jason. 2012. The Art of Making Do in Naples. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rafael, Vicente L., ed. 1999. Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Colonial Vietnam. Ithaca, N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Reddy, G. Ram, and Haragopal, G.. 1985. “The Pyraveekar: ‘The Fixer’ in Rural India.” Asian Survey 25(11):1148–62.Google Scholar
Roitman, Janet L. 2004. Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2001. “Talking Dirty About Politics: A View from a Bengali Village.” In The Everyday State and Society in Modern India, eds. Fuller, Chris J. and Benei, Veronique, 115–36. London: Hurst & Company.Google Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2010. “To Create a Crowd: Student Leaders in Dhaka.” In Power and Influence in India: Bosses, Lords and Captains, eds. Price, Pamela and Ruud, Arild Engelsen, 70–95. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2014. “The Political Bully in Bangladesh.” In Patronage as Politics in South Asia, ed. Piliavsky, Anastasia, 303–25. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sanchez, Andrew. 2016. Criminal Capital: Violence, Corruption, and Class in Industrial India. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schneider, Jane, and Schneider, Peter. 2008. “The Anthropology of Crime and Criminalization.” Annual Review of Anthropology 37:351–73.Google Scholar
Sen, Atreyee. 2007. “Everyday and Extraordinary Violence: Women Vigilantes and Raw Justice in the Bombay Slums.” In Global Vigilantes: Anthropological Perspectives on Violence and Vigilantism, eds. Pratten, David and Sen, Atreyee, 69–92. London: Hurst.Google Scholar
Sharan, Prabhat. 2012. “The New Mafia Raj.” Deccan Herald, March 17. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/235260/mafia-raj.html (accessed July 8, 2018).Google Scholar
Sidel, John. 2004. “Bossism in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia: Towards an Alternative Framework for the Study of Local Strongmen.” In Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation, eds. Harriss, John, Stokke, Kristian, and Tornquist, Olle, 51–74. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Simone, A. M. 2004. For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, Jonathan. 2007. Anthropology, Politics, and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Standing, André. 2003. “The Social Contradictions of Organised Crime on the Cape Flats.” ISS Paper 74. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.Google Scholar
Vaishnav, Milan. 2017. When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Van Schendel, Willem. 2009. A History of Bangladesh. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Schendel, Willem, and Abraham, Itty, eds. 2005. Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Varese, Federico. 2001. The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Varma, Pavan K. 2004. Being Indian: Inside the Real India. Delhi: Arrow.Google Scholar
Volkov, Vadim. 2002. Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism. Cornell, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Steven. 2004. Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Witsoe, Jeffrey. 2009. “Territorial Democracy: Caste, Dominance and Electoral Practice in Postcolonial India.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 32(1):64–83.Google Scholar