Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind

Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind was a Pathan organization operating in Mumbai, headed in its early days by Abdul Karim Khan, the gangster who would come to be known as Karim Lala. At the time the organization is most prominently featured, Karim Lala was still a small-time gangster, and the Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind served as the vehicle for his growing influence in the city's south. The organization was known for its aggressive activities, a reputation that made its leader a figure of fear in south Mumbai, even as Karim Lala himself was noted for being respectful towards women. This combination of feared power and personal chivalry made the Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind the singular institution to which a desperate woman could turn for redress in the male-dominated world of the Mumbai underworld.

Gangubai's Appeal to the Organization

The organization's most consequential appearance in the narrative comes through its interaction with Gangubai Kathiawadi, the brothel madam of Kamathipura. After she was brutally assaulted and hospitalized by a Pathan client, Gangubai learned that her assailant was a man named Shaukat Khan, who was associated with the Karim Lala gang. Despite the warnings of the other girls, including her confidante Sheela, who tried to dissuade her from meeting the infamous gangster, Gangubai remained obstinate. She felt that if anything was to be done about the assault, it would have to be done through Karim Lala and his organization. One Friday afternoon, after Karim Lala had finished offering his Jumma namaaz and was walking towards his home at Tahir Manzil in Lamington Road, Gangubai accosted him outside Baida Galli, the lane that led to his home. She addressed him with the greeting, 'Karim bhai, salaam. I need a small favour from you,' initiating a request that would bind the fate of the brothel madam to the Pathan gang.

The Organization's Role in Gangubai's Rise

The appeal to the Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind proved to be a turning point, not only for Gangubai's personal safety but for her standing within Kamathipura. The organization's response to her plea established her as a figure who had the ear of the most feared gang in south Mumbai. This connection was instrumental when, in the early 1960s, a strong movement picked up against the presence of the red-light zone. Authorities of St Anthony's Girls' High School and locals living near Kamathipura wanted part of the belt evacuated, citing the negative influence sex workers could have on young students and the rule that prostitution could not be carried out within two hundred yards of an educational institution. When the anti-prostitution sentiment swelled, the sex workers sought Gangubai's help, and she successfully spearheaded the movement against their evacuation. Her political connections, which were apparently bolstered by her underworld ties, also won her an appointment with the then prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, at his residence in New Delhi, making her the only local brothel madam to secure an audience with the head of the country.

The Organization's Legacy and the Fate of Its Leader

The Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind's power, like that of its leader, was not permanent. By the time of the 1992–93 Bombay riots, the organization's influence had faded considerably. Karim Lala was old and ailing, living a retired existence, while his contemporary Mastan was in a similar state, and the rival don Vardha had long since died after retreating to Chennai in 1988. The reigning ganglord Dawood had relocated to Dubai. The decline of the Pakhtoon Jirgai Hind and the other old gangs left the seventy-two-year-old Jenabai Daaruwali, another prominent woman of the underworld, with nothing in terms of wielded power, forcing her to rely on her own courage to lead a peace march through the torched lanes of Dongri. The organization's early role, however, had already left its mark on the city's history, having empowered the woman who would become known as the Queen of Kamathipura and who would, in turn, use that power to advocate for the rights of sex workers, arguing that they were the protectors of society's chastity and morality.