Tadipaar

Tadipaar, a term that in police lingo means to be 'removed from the city,' is a recurring instrument of state power in the narrative, a form of preventive detention that shapes the lives of criminals and their associates in Mumbai. It is a legal mechanism distinct from arrest and prosecution, functioning instead as an administrative order of exile that banishes a person from the city limits. The book presents it as a routine, almost bureaucratic, weapon in the police's arsenal against the underworld, deployed alongside more dramatic measures like encounter killings and sweeping laws such as MISA and MCOCA. Its significance lies in its quiet, pervasive power: it does not require a conviction, only suspicion, and its effects ripple through the lives of those it touches, from small-time gamblers to the families of the most wanted gangsters.

Definition and Operation

The term 'tadipaar' is explicitly defined in the book's own footnote as a police term meaning 'removed from the city.' This definition is crucial, as it distinguishes the practice from a criminal sentence. Tadipaar is an externment order, a form of administrative exile that the police can issue to compel a person to leave Mumbai and stay away, often for a specified period. It operates outside the normal judicial process of trial and conviction, relying instead on the executive authority of the police. The book shows it being served in bulk, as when a single tip-off leads to the police rounding up over forty persons, with tadipaar orders served to around twenty of them. This mass application reveals its nature as a blunt instrument of social control, used to disrupt criminal networks by removing their foot soldiers from the city's terrain, rather than as a precise tool of justice.

Use Against the Underworld

The most detailed instance of tadipaar in the narrative occurs during Sapna's covert war against Dawood's empire. Sapna, a woman seeking to avenge her husband's death, provides anonymous tip-offs to the Crime Branch about dance bars and gambling dens connected to the underworld. Following one of her tips, the police round up over forty persons, and tadipaar orders are served to around twenty of them. This mass externment is presented as a significant blow, a way to scatter the network's personnel and disrupt its operations. The fact that Sapna's information leads directly to these orders underscores how the police use tadipaar as a rapid-response tool to dismantle criminal infrastructure, even as the masterminds like Dawood himself remain beyond their reach. The orders are a form of territorial control, asserting the state's monopoly over the city's space by expelling those deemed undesirable.

A Broader Pattern of Exile and Detention

Tadipaar is part of a wider pattern of legal and extra-legal exile that runs through the book. The narrative is filled with instances of preventive detention and forced removal, from the MISA detentions of the Emergency era to the MCOCA arrests of a later period. Jenabai Daaruwali, a powerful figure in her own right, was jailed under MISA, though the charges against her could not be proved. Haji Mastan, the legendary smuggler, was detained under MISA for ninety days in 1974, then arrested under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Act, and tried again under MISA during the Emergency in 1977. These detentions, like tadipaar, were preventive rather than punitive, aimed at neutralizing individuals deemed dangerous to the state. The book's portrayal of these measures suggests a continuum of state control, where the police and government wield the power to remove, detain, and exile those they consider threats, often without the full weight of judicial process.

The Limits of State Power

The effectiveness of tadipaar and similar measures is shown to be limited. While the orders can scatter low-level operatives, they do little to dismantle the leadership of the underworld. Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind behind much of the crime Sapna targets, remains a fugitive, orchestrating operations from abroad. The book also shows that the state's reach has its own boundaries. The police's reliance on informants like Sapna, who refuse to reveal their identities and collect their rewards, highlights the informal and often fragile nature of this enforcement. Moreover, the narrative suggests that exile is not always permanent or effective; those removed from the city can return, and the networks they belong to often adapt. The tadipaar orders, for all their disruptive power, are presented as one move in an ongoing game of cat and mouse between the state and the underworld, a game in which the state's legal tools are constantly tested and often outmaneuvered.

Significance in the Narrative

The recurring presence of tadipaar in the book serves to illustrate the texture of life in Mumbai's underworld, where the threat of exile is a constant companion. It is a reminder that the power of the mafia is not just about violence and wealth, but also about navigating a landscape shaped by state coercion. For the women who are the book's focus, this landscape is particularly fraught. They are often caught between the criminal world and the state's response to it, subject to the same legal instruments as the men. The mention of tadipaar, often in passing, grounds the more dramatic stories of murder and betrayal in a mundane reality of police orders and administrative procedures. It is a detail that lends authenticity to the narrative, showing that the lives of these women and their associates are not just defined by spectacular acts of violence, but also by the quiet, persistent pressure of the state's legal machinery.