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India’s Law-of-the-Jungle Raj
The recent public murder of notorious Indian gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed serves as a potent reminder that Indian society and politics remain plagued by crime, brutality, and lawlessness. In fact, Ahmed's life and death suggests that the dysfunction is deepening.
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NEW DELHI – At around 6 p.m. on March 26 of this year, a portly man with a twirled mustache stepped out of Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat. A 20-member team of police was ushering him into the prisoner van that would take him to a court in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, to face judgment in a kidnapping case. A waiting reporter asked if he was afraid, and the man – the gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed – responded, “I know their plan; they want to murder me.”