Fourth, a large number of MPs have criminal cases pending against them, reflecting criminalisation of politics, or perhaps more accurately, politicisation of criminals. The uneducated have more criminal cases against them, as do those who are in the 36-45 age group. MPs with criminal links are concentrated in Bihar, UP, MP and Jharkhand while MPs from Himachal, Delhi, Uttarakhand and J&K are clean. MPs with criminal cases are most among the RJD, BSP and SP. It is fashionable to deride politicisation of criminals, especially when correlations (which don’t necessarily indicate causation) suggest that to be successfully elected as an MP, one should have criminal connections and money, with education perhaps a disadvantage.

However, caveats are necessary. There are diverse crimes and within the IPC (Indian Penal Code) definition of crime, there are minor and innocuous crimes. The PAC gets around this by only classifying major crimes, defined as those leading to imprisonments of five years or more. Nevertheless, these people have only been accused, not convicted. Once convicted, they can be barred from candidature as long as they serve out their sentences. To debar them once they have served out their sentences is to turn natural justice on its head. More commonly, they are accused and not convicted because of warts in the criminal justice system. That’s an indictment of justice delivery. A citizen can choose not to vote for a candidate with a criminal case pending. But debarring such candidates is also tantamount to indicting those who are presumed innocent and upsets all principles of jurisprudence. As is to be expected, concentration of such MPs is in geographical areas where the criminal justice system doesn’t particularly deliver. The armchair solution of excluding such candidates is probably non-sequitur. Improving delivery of criminal justice is the critical argument.

... contd.