In India, no shame in standing for election with criminal conviction

In the sixth round of countrywide voting taking place today in 117 of 543 parliamentary constituencies in India’s staggered general elections, one in six candidates faces criminal charges.

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a civil society election watchdog group, 15 per cent, or 321, of 2,071 candidates hoping to become MPs face criminal cases. Of these, 204 stand accused of murder, attempted murder, robbery and crimes against women in addition to a plethora of assorted charges, such as electoral misconduct and fostering sectarian tension.

Indian law requires electoral candidates to disclose all pending criminal charges against them and the ADR study is based on this data.

Political analysts estimate that once the ADR completes its scrutiny after the ninth and final round of polling on May 12th, the proportion of alleged lawbreakers will almost certainly top that of the 2009 election.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), widely tipped to be the winner when results are announced on May 16th, is fielding the largest number of candidates with criminal records, averaging about 40 per cent.The incumbent Congress Party and smaller regional parties follow, with marginally fewer criminal aspirants.

Despite the seriousness of the charges against them, however, it is highly unlikely that many, if any, will face speedy legal closure in India’s slow judicial system.

There are more than 40 million cases pending in Indian courts which, at a conservative estimate, would take more than 470 years to adjudicate. Consequently, politicians facing criminal prosecution, including those on remand in jail, remain eligible to contest provincial and parliamentary polls.

Over the past five years, at least 30 have been elected to office from their jail cells as they awaited trial. Some were even provided with additional security in jail as they claimed to be under threat from rival politicians. Once elected they were legally permitted to attend the legislature and were escorted back and forth from jail.

“Criminality is a serious problem in Indian politics and all major parties are implicated,” the ADR’s Jagdeep Chhoker said. Politicians, he claimed, were not overly concerned and reform was far away.

Currently, 162 MPs in the outgoing parliament, or about a third of the 543-member house elected in 2009, stand accused of crimes ranging from murder to rape and criminal intimidation. However, the ADR states that candidates with criminal records are twice as likely to win elections as those without any such charges.

Deep pockets
The alleged criminal candidates invariably have deeper pockets and a reputation for getting things done in large parts of the country where the state is weak and ineffective. This makes them popular with parties and voters alike in India's first-past-the-post system.

In a study on India’s two previous general elections, Milan Vaishnav of the Washington- based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that candidates with a “clean image” had a 7 per cent chance of electoral success, while those accused of minor and major crimes had success rates of 19 and 25 per cent respectively.

Another feature of Indian elections is the phenomenon of political primogeniture, where established politicians shamelessly propel their offspring, spouses, siblings or other relatives into public life.

Political scientist and historian Patrick French recently revealed that two-thirds of sitting Indian MPs under the age of 40 had a close relative in politics while a majority of the younger Congress Party parliamentarians occupied “hereditary seats” in parliament.

India’s Nehru-Gandhi family is the region’s most renowned dynasty having dominated the country’s politics for almost 50 of its 67 years since independence in 1947 and even before that, during the independence struggle.

India's first Congress Party prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was succeeded, after a brief hiatus, by his daughter Indira Gandhi. Her son Rajiv became prime minister after her assassination in 1984; after he, too, was killed by a suicide bomber seven years later, his Italian- born widow Sonia Gandhi took charge of the party in 1998.

Since 2004 after the Congress Party won two back-to- back elections, she has exercised notable political power, emerging as the de facto prime minister. She has unofficially anointed her son Rahul as putative prime minister in the unlikely event of the Congress Party emerging victorious.

Political nepotism is not confined to the Nehru-Gandhi family or indeed, the Congress Party alone. Wives, children, cousins and myriad family members of politicians from numerous regional parties are also deployed in constituencies where name recognition is important.

The BJP too does not lag behind in perpetuating dynastic rule, fielding its share of relatives in the electoral fray.

Solitary man
However, its leader Naraendra Modi, tipped as India's future prime minister, has no offspring having severed ties with his wife as a teenager. He also has little to do with his siblings and other relatives and flaunts his solitariness as a political asset in his public speeches.

Political scientist Anuradha Chenoy of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University said dynastic rule was “embedded” in India’s politics, not only through the Nehru-Gandhi clan but also a group of “lesser” elites.

“These families have perpetuated themselves in office, collectively cornering political space and financial resources, leaving limited room and assets for newcomers to challenge them,” Ms Chenoy said.