Chhota Rajan

Chhota Rajan, born Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje, stands as one of the most formidable and paradoxical figures in the Mumbai underworld—a self-proclaimed patriotic don whose criminal empire was, for a crucial period, run by his wife from their home in Tilak Nagar. His trajectory from a black-market ticket tout to a feared ganglord who split from Dawood Ibrahim's D-Company is inseparable from the story of Sujata Nikhalje, the woman who became known as 'Nani' and who took the reins of his illegitimate empire when betrayal and violence had stripped him of trusted lieutenants. Rajan's narrative is thus a lens through which the book examines how the structures of male criminal power depend on, and are often sustained by, the women who operate in their shadows.

Rise Through the Ranks of the Underworld

Rajan's origins were humble and rooted in the gritty neighbourhoods of Mumbai. He was a native of Lonar village in Satara, but grew up in Tilak Nagar, where he lived near Sahakar Cinema. He dropped out of school after Class 5 and joined a group of boys who touted film tickets on the black market in front of the cinema. His first taste of notoriety came in 1979 when he took the lead in assaulting police officers from the Tilak Nagar police station who were trying to stop the black marketing of movie tickets. This act of defiance brought him into the limelight and led him to join local gangster Rajan Nair, alias Bada (big) Rajan. Following Nair's murder, Rajan stepped into his mentor's shoes and took over the reins of the gang, which is how he eventually earned the title of Chhota (small) Rajan. He later affiliated himself with the reigning don Dawood Ibrahim, at whose behest he began handling all the activities of the D-gang in Mumbai.

Marriage and the Bond with Dawood

It was around the time of his rise that Rajan fell in love with Sujata, a girl from a simple lower middle-class Maharashtrian family who lived in a government chawl in Tilak Nagar. Rajan's growing reputation as a prominent gangster only drew Sujata closer to him. Their courtship was interrupted when Rajan, fearing arrest by the Mumbai police, escaped the city and moved to Dubai to be with his boss, Dawood. The separation was brief; in 1987, within a year of his escape, Rajan called Sujata to Dubai and the couple was married in a special ceremony arranged by Dawood himself. A photograph taken at the wedding—showing Dawood and his wife Mehjebeen standing beside the newlyweds—was splashed across the Indian media, cementing the public image of their closeness. The relationship was so significant that years later it was depicted on celluloid by Bollywood director Ram Gopal Verma in his film Company.

The Split from D-Company and the Rise of 'Nani'

In 1993, Rajan split from the D-company and went into hiding somewhere in Southeast Asia, while Sujata flew back home to India with their three young daughters, Ankita, Nikita and Khushi. From his exile, Rajan built a huge business empire that included extortion, property deals, the film industry, gambling and betting dens, prostitution rackets and horse racing. For a time, his trusted associates looked after his properties across India, but he lost several close aides to police encounters and bullets from the enemy camp, including his most capable hitman and financier Rohit Verma, who was killed by the henchmen of Dawood aide Chhota Shakeel. Left with no trustworthy second-in-command and wary of his own men after a series of betrayals, Rajan looked homewards for support and found the desired handier in his wife. A housewife and mother of three, Sujata was suddenly pushed into taking up the reins of her husband's illegitimate empire. She began to expand his extortion business and supervise his gang's activities from their home, earning the sobriquet 'Nani'—not because she was a grandmother, but because she was the wife of Rajan, alias Nana.

The Corporate Don and the Real Estate Empire

Under Rajan's guidance, Sujata transformed from a housewife into a corporate don wife. Initially working with a group of consultants to understand her husband's financial stocks, she was advised to invest in Bollywood and real estate, where black money could be legitimised. However, a scandal involving her brother-in-law, Deepak Nikhalje, who had produced the hit film Vaastav in 1999 and was accused of being a front for his gangster brother, deterred her from the film industry. She turned instead to real estate, where soaring prices in the late '90s made Tilak Nagar an attractive destination for redevelopment. With her reputation as 'Nani' and wife of a gangster, Sujata often managed to arm-twist several people into selling their homes for good prices. She soon began her own construction company, Khushi Developers Private Ltd, named after her youngest daughter, and employed a powerful team of chartered accountants to handle its finances. She prepared a strategy to transform Tilak Nagar into a plush suburban locality, pulling down old buildings and replacing them with sprawling malls, high-rises and office complexes. Throughout, she kept Rajan informed of her meetings via telephone calls, and following his advice, she involved his men to ensure she had her way, with Rajan's goons terrorising builders through extortion and land-grabbing. This honeymoon period, however, did not last long, as the police, who had been tapping Sujata's phone lines, learned of her land deals and closed in on her, aided by a complaint from a builder who had been threatened by Rajan's gang.

Narrative Role and Significance

Rajan's story, as told through his wife's rise, serves as a powerful illustration of the book's central thesis about the complex minds and psyches of women criminals. The narrative of Sujata Nikhalje walking out of a Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court after a hearing is a testament to how the gangster's power was not solely his own but was propped up by the women who managed his affairs. Rajan himself is a figure of contrast within the book's gallery of criminals; unlike the women whose stories are told as tales of survival and transcendence of poverty, Rajan's power is depicted as a more conventional male trajectory of violence and ambition. Yet his dependence on Sujata reveals a deeper truth about the gendered dynamics of the underworld, where the 'clones galore' of the Chhotas (Rajan and Shakeel) are contrasted with the rare figures like Sapna Didi, a woman who dared to stand up against Dawood and was given a dastardly death. Rajan's story, therefore, is not just his own but a crucial part of the book's exploration of how crime, gender, and power intertwine in the Mumbai underworld.