Last week’s encounter killing of Uttar Pradesh don Vikas Dubey by the police brings to focus once again the nexus between the politicians and criminals and has started a wider debate. Dubey was shot dead on Friday by the police, who claimed he was trying to flee after the car carrying him from Ujjain toppled on the outskirts of the city. Prior to that on July 3, Dubey killed eight policemen in a shoot-out in Kanpur amidst allegations that some politicians and police officers have been shielding him. Both his arrest and the encounter have raised several inconvenient questions. The opposition parties in UP have accused the BJP ruled Yogi Adityanath government of shielding him forgetting that many other parties which ruled UP over the years helped him to grow as a don. U.P leaders from Mayawati to Akhilesh Yadav to Priyanka Gandhi have demanded a serious probe alleging that the gangster was killed to protect the UP government.

Former DGP and distinguished ambassador, Julius Rebeiro, has put it succinctly in an opinion piece: “How did Vikas Dubey, a local hoodlum whose territory did not extend beyond a couple of districts in Uttar Pradesh, lose all respect for the police and authority of the state? The answer is not difficult to formulate. All the classical signs of decay of the judicial system, because of the politicization of the institutions of governance, were long visible to even those outside this system.”

With a criminal career spanning over three decades, Dubey is a classic case of how a small time goon grew to head a major criminal network with the help of the corrupt system. Dubey’s death marks 118thencounter killing since March 2017 when Yogi Adityanath took over. Unfortunately with the encounter death the truth is now lost as Vikas Duney was needed alive and not dead to know the names of his backers. Many say that the killing was outside the law and encounter death is not the real punishment, as he needed to go through the judicial process. The judicial system was equally to blame as with about 60 odd criminal cases against him, Vikas had managed remain outside on bail.

The criminalization issue has been often debated in public forum. This nexus between the netas and criminals saw an upward trend since the eighties. While the politicians used criminals earlier, the latter saw that they themselves could get into Parliament. The Supreme Court and the Election Commission of India (ECI) - the two constitutional bodies have undertaken some commendable steps for reforming the electoral process. The February 2020 Supreme Court judgment in this regard will have far reaching impact as the apex court has asked “reasons for such selection, as also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates.” If implemented, for the first time the political leadership will be answerable for criminalisation of politics. In the last four elections there has been an alarming trend of increased criminalisation of politics. Interestingly the judgement also noted that “In 2004, 24 per cent of the Members of Parliament had criminal cases pending against them; in 2009, that went up to 30 per cent; in 2014 to 34 per cent; and in 2019 as many as 43 per cent of MPs had criminal cases pending against them.” The first test of implementation of this judgment will be the upcoming Bihar elections although successive judgments barring criminals have done little. Under current law, only people who have been convicted at least on two counts be debarred from becoming candidates.

What are needed are urgent judicial reforms, police reforms and electoral reforms, which are long overdue. For instance there have been a number reports on electoral reforms including the Dinesh Goswamy committee lying unused. The Election Commission needs to be provided with more powers. The nexus between the criminals, police and politicians need to be addressed and checked. There have been many reports on police reforms, electoral reforms and judicial reforms. They need to be dusted out and implemented.

Interestingly, many criminals have entered politics and become lawmakers. Nearly half of the newly elected Lok Sabha members in 2019 have criminal charges against them, a 26 percent increase as compared to 2014, according to the Association of Democratic Reforms. Many governments have talked about these reforms but nothing concrete has been done. What are lacking are the political will and the support of all parties to bring legislations addressing these issues. The public also should not elect criminals. (IPA Service)