India's Many Mafias & The Damage They Do
Abhilash Gaur
TNN
Jul 9, 2025, 20:36 IST IST
From gangs mining sand, selling blackmarket kerosene to running illegal parking, they control a vast unlawful shadow economy. They steal govt revenues, diminish its authority, damage environment, & intimidate citizens
Think 'robber baron', and America's industry captains of the 1800s come to mind. Ruthless builders of railways, and oil and steel empires. While they lacked scruples, the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Charles Crocker wore a cloak of legality. But the original robber barons – the 'raubritter' of mediaeval Germany – were thugs, charging extortionate, unauthorised tolls on the Rhine, like the 'octroi mafia' that bedevilled Indian highways before GST.
Octroi thugs are gone now, but other species of the genus 'mafia' are thriving across India. Sand mafia , tanker mafia, parking mafia, coal mafia , slum mafia, to name a few. Like the raubritter, they grab and exploit a collective resource without the state's permission. Of course, they have to bribe, and connive with, officials – instruments of the state – but that's not the same as working with the state.
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