Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress, the party at the heart of India's independence movement, functions in this book as the political engine whose policies inadvertently built the stage for the women criminals it chronicles. Its commitment to prohibition, its governance of Bombay, and its national leadership repeatedly intersect with the lives of bootleggers, brothel madams, and gangsters' wives, making the party an unseen but decisive force in the underworld's formation and evolution. From the imposition of a ban on alcohol that created a lucrative black market to the highest office of the land receiving a brothel madam, the Congress's actions and figures are woven into the very fabric of the women's stories, often as the catalyst for their criminal enterprises or the target of their political maneuvering.

Prohibition and the Birth of the Bootlegger

The Congress's long-standing moral agenda, central to Mahatma Gandhi's vision, directly created the economic niche that launched Jenabai Daaruwali's most famous career. Prohibition was introduced in Bombay on 1 August 1939, two years after the first Congress ministry was formed in the province, immediately sparking clashes between supporters and opponents. The law's enforcement, led by Home Minister Barrister K.M. Munshi, involved an intensive recruitment drive and the creation of a special X Division headed by a DCP, Prohibition, but the outbreak of the Second World War diverted this force to secure the docks, crippling implementation. When the Congress returned to power in 1946 after the defeat of the Nazis, prohibition was reimposed, and in 1950, Chief Minister Morarji Desai, a staunch opponent of alcohol, declared complete prohibition in liquor sales from 6 April of that year under the Bombay Prohibition Act of 1949. This act, the book notes, did nothing but sow the seeds for bigger crimes, opening the gateway for bootleggers and smugglers. It was during this period that Jenabai, still dealing in grain but tired of marginal profits, met the Tamilian don Vardharajan Mudaliar, a meeting that would transform her from a grain broker into a liquor queen. The prohibition policy, a direct product of Congress ideology, thus stands as the primary cause for the rise of the very criminal economy the party's laws sought to suppress.

The Party's Reach into the Underworld's Politics

Beyond creating criminal markets, the Congress's political structures and leaders became direct points of contact and contestation for the women in the book. Gangubai Kathiawadi, the brothel madam of Kamathipura, used her political connections to secure an appointment with the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, at his residence in New Delhi, becoming the only local brothel madam to ever meet the head of the country. This meeting was a culmination of her successful spearheading of the movement against the evacuation of sex workers from Kamathipura, a campaign where her political ties proved decisive. The party's influence also extended to the electoral arena, where the wives of gangsters sought legitimacy through its processes. Asha Gawli, wife of the don Arun Gawli, stood for the civic corporation elections in 1996, hoping her political standing would help her husband, but she lost terribly. This defeat shifted her focus to her husband's political career, leading to the creation of the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, a party that would challenge the Congress's dominance in their constituency. The Congress, as the established political power, thus served as both a gateway to legitimacy for figures like Gangubai and a formidable barrier for those like Asha, who had to build an alternative political vehicle to protect her husband from the state.

A Legacy of Law and Its Consequences

The Congress's legislative legacy, particularly its approach to law and order, created the legal framework within which the underworld operated and was contested. The party's prohibition laws, as seen with Jenabai, were a direct cause of criminal enterprise. Later, the state's response to organized crime, which included the use of stringent laws like TADA and its successor MCOCA, was a continuation of this legislative approach. The book notes that MCOCA was promulgated by the Maharashtra government in 1998 after the abrogation of TADA, a law that was itself a product of the state's ongoing struggle against organized crime. This legal environment directly impacted the women, from Asha Gawli's arrest in the Manish Shah murder case to her husband's trials under MCOCA. The party's historical role in shaping Bombay, from its British-era infrastructure like Marine Lines to its post-independence governance, forms the backdrop against which these women's stories unfold. The Congress, in this narrative, is not merely a political party but the architect of the very conditions—economic, legal, and political—that defined the lives of the women it inadvertently helped create, from the grain broker Jenabai to the political campaigner Asha Gawli.