The Faceless Man

According to this newspaper's crime reporter, the hired gunman is, typically, young, uneducated, unemployed, expendable and happy to get pai...

According to this newspaper8217;s crime reporter, the hired gunman is, typically, young, uneducated, unemployed, expendable and happy to get paid Rs 5000 or less for an assignment. That description could fit a large numberof young men. To narrow it down to those among Mumbai8217;s army of illiterate, jobless youth who might be prepared to kill for a living, one would have to look for additional factors and specifically those that make people prone to violence.

A socio-economic study by Tata Institute of Social Sciences relevant to the the riots of 1992 and 1993, referred to the 8220;frustration-aggression syndrome8221; which is produced by living in squalor in slums, by cruel exploitation in the informal sector and rising job losses in the organised sector. Not much has changed in the last five years. Indeed things have probably got worse for large numbers of people. Taken together that would mean a vast pool of resources for organised crime. To acknowledge the part played by social and economic deprivation in violentcrime is not to condone the criminals but to draw attention to the root of the problem.

Unless something is done simultaneously to improve opportunities for young people, all the measures the government is contemplating 8212; tougher laws, reorganising the police force, cracking down on unlicensed arms 8212; will not eliminate either the new or old mafia. It doesn8217;t need Bollywood to tell us that a life of crime offers things many young men can get nowhere else.

Obviously there is money and a job and the training that goes with it. There is also a macho lifestyle, a community to belong to and a chance for the powerless to exercise power. The government also needs to ask itself why there are so few barriers to entry into the underworld. Poor law enforcement is one major answer.

When the law is flouted easily and people at all levels, including politicians, get away with it, it is an encouragement to crime. The notorious political-criminal nexus is not only material for outrage in newspapers and inParliament. It is a reality ordinary people see around them every day. To get rid of the hired gunman the government will have to tackle both his paymasters and the conditions that breed him.