Bootlegging, politics and corruption: State violence and the routine practices of public power in Gujarat (1985-2002)

This study explores the nature and practice of state power in ordinary times, as it developed in Gujarat from the 1980s, in an attempt to understand how the communal harnessing of the state that manifested in large parts of Gujarat in 2002 was possible. In particular, it examines everyday expressions of public corruption around the politics of bootlegging. In the context of systemic corruption at the local level in routine times there was little difference between violators of the law and its purported guardians, such as state law-enforcement mechanisms and politicians. From the 1980s, practices of public power in Ahmedabad, infused by routine forms of corruption, became entwined with deepening ethno-Hindu politics and a strong anti-Muslim bent, thus readily enabling the communal harnessing of state power in 2002.