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may well be that it is easy to exercise corruption in Nepal,
and even limited coercive threats achieve their desired
effects, including impunity. Nepali criminal groups have
been able to cultivate networks of political support at the
highest levels of law enforcement institutions and at the
top level of political parties. The former Home Minister Bijay
Kumar Gacchadar, for example, was accused of protecting
the criminal don Ganesh Lama. 118 Overall, Nepal’s
pervasive culture of corruption, nepotism, impunity, and
politicization provides an easy operating environment
for criminal groups. Paradoxically, more effective law
enforcement and prosecution of criminal groups may, at
least initially, provide an impetus for criminal groups to
resort to intensified violence.
Although Nepal’s crime for profit can be characterized as
“economic” in order to distinguish it from the previouslydiscussed
crime in support of political objectives, even
economic crime can have political effects. Such political
effects of “economic” crime can be acutely felt with
respect to the allegiance of local populations toward
the state and local governance overall. 119 Yet one of the
most striking characteristics of criminal groups in Nepal
is their failure to provide “public” goods and socioeconomic
services to local populations in their areas
of operation. From the urban centers of Sicily and small
villages in Ghana to Karachi’s slums and Rio de Janeiro’s
favelas, criminal groups frequently provide a variety of
“public” goods and socio-economic service: They regulate
the level of criminal violence, provide dispute resolution
and informal adjudication mechanisms, and deliver
clinics, schools, the pavement of roads, or at minimum
distribute small handouts to secure the support of local
populations. 120 Yet during the research conducted in
Kathmandu and Kavrepalanchok, Kaski, Bardia, Banke,
Chitwan, and Solukhumbu districts, only one criminal
group was identified to engage in any kind of public or
socio-economic goods distribution or any other efforts
to cultivate support among local populations. The one
exception was the Lali Guras group in Pokhara, which
has distributed some of its profits from local drug sales
and extortion of real estate businesses among the poor
118. “Dangerous Hands: Gangsters in Nepal,” Kathmandu Post, April 04, 2012.
119. For more conceptual background, see: Felbab-Brown, Vanda (2011b). “Human Security
and Crime in Latin America: The Political Capital and Political Impact of Criminal Groups and
Belligerents Involved in Illicit Economies,” FIU/WHEMSAC, September 2011.
120. For details, see: ibid.
of the city of Pokhara and the Kaski district. To strengthen
its Robin Hood image, Lali Guras also organized a rather
popular blood donation. In 2012, the group announced
that it would cease its criminal activities and concentrate
purely on social work. 121 The growing political capital of
Lali Guras has come to be seen as threatening by at least
the local Maoist cadres in Pokhara, perhaps because both
groups seek to curry favor with the local urban poor. 122
One possible reason why criminal groups in Nepal have
not yet systematically learned that building political
capital among local populations is highly advantageous is
that they face little competition in anchoring themselves
among the people from other non-state actors. During
the civil war, the Maoist insurgents did provide alternative
courts, for example, but they have ceased to do so after
the civil war ended. 123 Apart from being the source of
employment and patronage for its members, the youth
wings of political parties do not systematically engage
in the provision of public goods or even limited socioeconomic
benefits to local populations, even though they
publicly emphasize their community service activities
along with party development functions. 124 On occasion,
the UCPN(Maoist)’s Young Communist League has
undertaken some activities purported to curb local crime
and social “evils” such as gambling and corruption. 125
Nonetheless, the level of such “public good” activities by
the youth wings remains quite limited. Moreover, as in
the case of restraining their own use of violence, criminal
groups in Nepal perhaps assess that t<strong>here</strong> is little need for
costly investment in cultivating political capital among
local populations if they already have easy and secure
access to key politicians and law enforcement and justice
officials.
Nor have criminal groups in Nepal yet congealed into
systematically controlling property or providing contract
enforcement. 126 Even as they at times mediate the interface
121. Author’s interviews with a prominent Pokhara journalist, May 22, 2012.
122. Author’s interviews with a Maoist party leader for the Kaski district, Pokhara, May 23, 2012.
123. For details on Maoist mobilization during the civil war, see Bharadwaj et al (2012).
124. Carter <strong>Center</strong> (2011). (pp. 8-14)
125. Ibid. (pp. 9)
126. For conceptual background, see: Diego Gambetta (1993). The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of
Private Protection Cambridge: Harvard University Press. See also: Jean-Francois Bayart; Stephen
Ellis; and Beatrice Hibou (1999). Criminalization of the African State. Oxford: James Currey. See also:
Enrique Desmond Arias (2010). “Understanding Criminal Networks, Political Order, and Politics in
Latin America,” in Clunnan and Trinkunas, eds., Ungoverned Spaces: Alternatives to State Authority in
an Era of Softened Sovereignty. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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