Arun Gawli

Arun Gawli, the Hindu don of Byculla, stands apart in the annals of Mumbai's underworld not merely for his criminal exploits but for his unprecedented foray into electoral politics, a career sustained by his wife, Asha Gawli. Known to his followers as 'Daddy', Gawli managed to achieve what few of his rivals could: a seat in the state Legislative Assembly, won while he was often behind bars, and a survival record that saw him escape the fake encounters that claimed the lives of other top dons. His story is one of a gangster who, with the unwavering support of his wife, blurred the lines between crime, politics, and family, creating a fortress that the police could never fully breach.

From Mill Worker to Gangster

Gawli's origins were humble and rooted in the working-class milieu of Mumbai. Like his father before him, he first secured a job at Shakti Mills in Mahalaxmi at the young age of twenty. It was only when he shifted to Crompton Greaves Ltd in Kanjurmarg that he began his descent into the underworld. He joined forces with his old friend and schoolmate Rama Naik, and the two became embroiled in several local intra-gang brawls. His rise to notoriety was cemented in 1980 when, along with Naik and another goon, Babu Reshim, a leader of the canteen workers at the Mazgaon docks, he murdered Parasnath Pandey, who ran major matka and liquor rackets. The killing was a calculated move to gain control of the collection of matka and liquor money in central Mumbai. This act of violence propelled him into the ranks of established gangsters, and he was consequently detained under the National Security Act, though he was released after just a month of custody. His power and influence only grew after his release.

Marriage to Asha and the Birth of 'Mummy'

It was during this period of rising power that Gawli met and fell in love with seventeen-year-old Zubeida Mujawar, a Muslim woman who, like him, lived in Byculla. Their union was controversial from the start. Zubeida's marriage had already been arranged with a boy from within the Muslim community, but when Gawli asked her to marry him, she accepted happily. His own accomplices, Naik and Reshim, opposed the alliance on the grounds that the two were from different communities, aghast that a Hindu Maharashtrian was marrying a Muslim. Gawli refused to budge and finally married Zubeida, who then converted to Hinduism and changed her name to Asha. In her, he found not just a wife but a dependable aide who would run his household at Dagdi Chawl in Byculla. Asha initially stayed away from her husband's criminal activities, raising and educating their five children—Geeta, Mahesh, Yogita, Yogesh, and Asmita—while watching anxiously from a distance as he indulged in the bloody battles of the mafiosi. However, with Gawli being a frequent guest in the city's jails, Asha had no option but to take the reins and run the show by proxy. She formulated ingenious ways to protect her husband from the law, including having holes dug inside their kitchen where Gawli would hide whenever the police arrived with an arrest warrant. According to police, she had a pit dug right below the area that housed the gas cylinder. Her involvement became so vital to the gang that Gawli began treating her as his most trusted lieutenant. As she shed her shy and orthodox ways and turned aggressive and wily, and since the gang members addressed Gawli as 'Daddy', Asha automatically came to be known as 'Mummy'.

The Political Ascent and the Akhil Bharatiya Sena

Gawli's political ambitions were born out of a primal fear of being killed by the police. In 1996, while he was locked up in the Kolhapur jail and serving time under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), he fleetingly mentioned his aspirations to join politics, with the explicit reason being to save himself from a police encounter. The previous year, Asha had stood for the civic corporation elections, hoping her political standing would help her husband, but she had lost terribly. After this, she shifted her focus to her husband's political career. In 1997, with his wife's encouragement and support, he started the Akhil Bharatiya Sena (ABS). While he was the president of the ABS, Asha headed the women's wing, which was used as a shield for the don against arrests and police encounters. A group of women would constantly surround Gawli every time he walked out of Dagdi Chawl, a strategy that other dons in the underworld made fun of. But the strategy worked; the cops could neither trace him in the crowd nor get violent with the women, and he was able to escape unscathed on more than one occasion. Asha can be credited with safeguarding her husband against the police machinery and fake encounters on innumerable occasions, and due to her efforts, Arun eventually went on to become a member of the Legislative Assembly in the state government. With a strong ally in his wife, it is not surprising that Arun is practically the only don who has been able to stay on in Mumbai and shape a career in crime and politics, right under the nose of the police and the Maharashtra government.

The 2009 Election Campaign and Defeat

A couple of years before the Legislative Assembly elections of 2009, Gawli was again put behind bars, this time being tried under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Asha, however, did not give up. She filed his nomination papers for him and, along with their daughter Geeta, took it upon herself to campaign for him. A pre-election report in The Asian Age by Jigna Vora mentioned how Agni, an NGO, had rated Arun the most competent MLA during his term. In fact, it had been Asha who had worked in the constituency on her husband's behalf. While Arun spent most of his time as an MLA in jail, Asha had ensured that she redressed the grievances of the people in the locality, as she knew that only their satisfaction could give her husband another shot at the MLA seat. While campaigning, she spent money from the gang's resources to ensure that people were happy with her husband. However, they did not stop to think about one crucial aspect—Arun's own absence. Besides, his lack of attendance in the Assembly session hadn't gone unnoticed by political observers. The people of his constituency voted against him, and Arun failed to clinch the MLA post.

Survival and Legacy

Despite the electoral defeat, Mummy is not a disappointed woman. For her, the very fact that Arun is safe and unharmed by police forces, even after being tried under several stringent laws, still makes her a clear winner. Several top dons like Amar Naik, Sada Pawle, and Nari Khan have been killed in fake police encounters. In fact, even low-level acolytes have not been spared by the cops. If Gawli has managed to survive the encounters, and even gone on to win MLA elections, and if his daughter and party workers have become corporators, it's largely because of his wife. Arun Gawli rarely steps out of his fortress; it is Asha who goes out and does everything for him, whether it's canvassing for elections, making the rounds of the courts for legal battles, or staging dharnas outside police stations and ministers' offices. His public persona, as seen when he campaigns, is that of an elderly, unimposing gentleman with a flowing white beard, greeted by his followers with cries of 'Mummy zindabad!'—a testament to the fact that his power and survival are inextricably linked to the woman who bears that title.