In SUV'S with Machetes - Rowdyism in TamilNadu

When Chennai police recently played spoiler at the birthday bash of a local gangster, Binu, no fewer than 75 history-sheeters attending the event surrendered, offering little resistance. Notwithstanding this rare instance of non-violent intervention against “rowdies”, there is little doubt that a thriving parallel culture of rowdyism has taken root in Tamil Nadu.

Gang wars, police complicity, ineffective monitoring in prisons, a painfully slow legal system, and political patronage have ensured that rowdies — typically common criminals who sometimes harbour grand ambitions of power and patronage — are never out of circulation. Many have origins in the slums of north Chennai, rural Madurai, and the southern pockets of the State. Their reign of terror, which took off after gangs became more organised in the 1970s, has been peppered with deaths in police encounters.

Rowdies have evolved since the days they roamed the streets in lungis and vests, hurling soda bottles in the air and rotating bicycle chains as weapons. Today, most are clad in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers, wield machetes, are sometimes armed with crude bombs, and often travel in mid-range SUVs or imported sedans.

Many among the rowdies of today started off as hirelings involved in extorting money from traders, monopolising loading and unloading contracts in markets, and money lending. In time they graduated to area ganglords holding kangaroo courts, grabbing properties, and committing murders. Each time a rowdy is eliminated by a rival gang, it leads to a vicious chain of revenge killings, some of them plotted and executed in prisons, and then new rowdies emerge.

Often the popular rowdies earn unique sobriquets such as “Punk” Kumar, “Welding” Kumar, “Appalam” Raju, “Attack” Pandi and “Pottu” Suresh depending on their hairstyle, overall appearance, or vocation. Chennai at one point was so saturated with rowdies named Ravi that the police began distinguishing them as “Vellai” or white Ravi for those with a fair complexion, “Bokkai” or toothless Ravi for the dentally challenged, “Dog” Ravi for canine specialists, and “Kalvettu” Ravi for the association with culverts.

Dravidian politics has contributed to this culture by engaging with anti-social elements to settle scores beyond the context of State elections. In 1991-96, rowdies hired by politicians had a free run, launching murderous attacks on anyone opposing erstwhile Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s policies. Madurai was in the grip of fear in 2006-11 when associates of former Union Minister M.K. Alagiri ran loose, the most infamous case being the arson attack at the office of the Tamil daily Dinakaran.

Meanwhile, some rowdy bosses took the political route, securing party tickets and winning elections. Others enjoyed the backing of politicians along caste lines. Jayalalithaa and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M. Karunanidhi did not shy away from admitting anti-social elements into their party fold. Unless a less violence-prone political culture takes root, Tamil Nadu may struggle to shake off the image of being a State that relies on all manner of illegal forces to extract resources from its hapless denizens.