States: Maharashtra: Mobile Underworld

India Today, March 15, 1999
March 15, 1999

MAHARASHTRA
Mobile Underworld

Thrown out of Mumbai by the law Arun Gawli makes an obscure village his home. Thanks to the humble cell phone it may also become his operational headquarters.

By Sheela Raval

Arun Gawli: Has gone from being pursued to being protected At first glance you'd mistake him for one of those actors who tries providing comic relief in a more melodramatic Hindi film -- you know, a sort of Mukri or Johnny Lever wannabe. He even seems the part: dressed in a green Color Plus shirt and blue jeans in Vadgaon Pir, a village in the middle of Maharashtra, muttering incessantly about "anyay (injustice)", surrounded by a fawning crowd that insists on calling him "Daddy", and smiling shyly (or is it slyly?) from under his thick moustache.

Actually, Arun Gawli, 45, is something of an enigma wrapped in innocuousness. To the Mumbai police, he is a gangster who controls 600 criminals in India's richest city and is implicated in at least 20 serious offences, ranging from extortion to murder.

So it must have been with some trepidation that the 250 residents of Vadgaon Pir -- some 100 km from Pune, off the Nashik highway -- reacted on February 22 when Gawli plonked himself on their sleepy hamlet and announced he was going to stay there for the next two years. What's more, he brought wife Asha and 125 acolytes with him. This followed his externment from Mumbai and Thane under section 56A of the Bombay Police Act. In effect, Mumbai's lawmakers threw out outlaw Gawli for a couple of years. That explains Gawli's move to the house of his father-in-law, Shaikh Lal Mujawar.

Whatever his future plans, for the moment Gawli has made Vadgaon Pir a tourist attraction in rural Maharashtra. The self-proclaimed Robin Hood holds court every day and has about 100 visitors from nearby villages. Says Sadoba Biane, a farmer from Manchar village who walked 15 km for a dekko, "I am curious to see what the don looks like. I want to talk to him to find out what kind of a man he is ... whether he's worth accepting as our leader."

Among the many topis Gawli wears, one is the politician's. He insists it is the fear of his Akhil Bharatiya Sena (ABS) that forced the Shiv Sena-led state Government to expel him from Mumbai with just a year to go for assembly elections. Gawli of course is plotting revenge. He promises to use Vadgaon Pir as the base for a political takeover of the hinterland.

"Though my externment order is politically motivated," he says, "and I am going to fight it in the courts, I see this as a godsend for my party. My presence here will do wonders for my party's image. The people will see me as one of them and not an outsider." In the two weeks he has been here, Gawli has already appointed 20 taluka chiefs and enrolled 250 new members. The ABS claims to have five lakh members in Maharashtra and vows to contest 150 of the Assembly's 288 seats in the March 2000 polls.

Much of this is a pie in the sky -- but Gawli's persuasive skills are more real. He's certainly convinced local resident Rambhau Lolge: "Daddy seems to be worried about our welfare and future." That "Daddy" has brought with him machines to detect groundwater has helped.

Despite the ambitious political plans, Gawli must find the pace of life in Vadgaon Pir a trifle slow. Though he's up at 8 a.m. and doesn't go to bed till quite late, he hardly has much to do. He spends three hours in prayer and in reading the Bhagvad Gita -- and watches television news bulletins over and over again till he gets bored. No wonders he's so restless.

Of course, there are the visitors. They queue up, businessmen, farmers, even Shiv Sena pramukhs, outside Mujawar's house -- the lone cement building amid thatched roofs. Only a chosen few are allowed into the guest room on the first floor. It is decorated in the best traditions of calendar art, with garish portraits of Hindu deities adorning the walls. This is Gawli's sanctum sanctorum.

The fetish for privacy can be partially explained by the overwhelming smell of danger. As Sandeep, Gawli's 21-year-old aide, whispers to you, "He has to be extra careful. It is an open place and bullets can come from any side. From the rivals ... or maybe the police." Despite such conspiracy theories, the Pune district police seems fairly keen on protecting Gawli. Five armed policemen are stationed full time in Vadgaon Pir to guard him. That apart, the police and the ABS are running parallel spy networks in the village and keeping an eye on just about everybody.

With the novelty now on the wane, the more important question is: how will Gawli run his operations in Mumbai? Local policemen scoff at his statements that he'll only relax, breathe the unpolluted air and stroll in the onion and wheat fields: "Today, all the big dons and their cronies operate from abroad. So the externment order will not prevent Gawli from carrying out his plans."

Gawli's real weapon is the cellular phone, which is part of his essential luggage in Vadgaon Pir. Technology has rendered the externment law obsolete and Gawli can be in regular touch with his syndicate in Mumbai. Yes, his movements will be hampered. Yes, he is homesick for Dagdi Chawl: "I am a hardcore Mumbaikar. I have spent my life in Mumbai. I wish to die in Mumbai." Nevertheless, like Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai and Chhota Rajan in Malaysia, Gawli will learn to overcome geography. Mumbai's underworld is fast becoming the preserve of the absentee landlord.

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