Education and criminality in Gujarat politics
One starts wondering whether politics makes the more educated also more criminally prone! A safe conjecture could be that the more educated a candidate the less is the chance of him, or her, facing a criminal charge.
The results from the Gujarat assembly elections will be out on Monday. In an earlier piece (ET, December 11, 2007), we had analysed the criminal antecedents of the candidates in the first phase of the elections and found slightly more than 17% to have had criminal antecedents. Taking all the 182 constituencies into account, we have as many as 241 candidates who have criminal charges against them.
Thus, if we add in the second phase, the proportion actually increases to 19%, signifying a higher concentration of criminally-charged candidates for the second phase. Overall, and something that we already saw in the first phase, the Congress, at over 25%, has the largest proportion of candidates with criminal charges against them; next is BSP with 22% followed by the BJP with 20%.
The Election Commission has made it mandatory for all candidates to disclose the criminal charges they are facing. This was aimed, apparently, at arresting the increasing “criminalisation” of politics. We do not know, as yet, how the electorate will respond to these disclosures. However, once the results are out, we will know whether, or not, voters shun politicians with criminal charges against them. If they do, the Commission will have served a useful purpose; if they do not, we have to seriously doubt our ability to understand what affects the electorate.
It is interesting to see how education affects the criminality in politics. A safe conjecture could be that more educated a candidate the less is the chance of him, or her, facing a criminal charge. Alternatively put, the proportion of criminally-charged candidates among the more educated should be less than those among the less educated. Only 28% of all candidates have at least a graduate degree — the rest have, at most, a school leaving certificate and a smattering of them are diploma holders. Our candidates, therefore, are not exactly very well-educated.
This is not surprising given that less than 10% of all Indians, even today, enter college. But, what is surprising is that about 21% of graduate and graduate-plus degree holders have been criminally charged; about 18% of the less educated candidates are criminally charged. At the very least, one starts wondering whether politics makes the more educated also more criminally prone!
This obviously raises the question of whether parties prefer the more educated as candidates. The three largest parties are the BJP, the INC and the BSP — in terms of the number of constituencies where they have candidates. Some 36% of the INC candidates have a graduate or graduate+ degree, BJP is similar at 37%. The BSP has only 31% candidates with college degrees and above.
A quarter of all criminally charged BSP candidates have college and college+ degrees. This proportion changes drastically for the other two parties — 36 for the BJP and 39 for the INC. In short, if we are expecting education to get rid of criminality, we have a long way to go.
Thus, if we add in the second phase, the proportion actually increases to 19%, signifying a higher concentration of criminally-charged candidates for the second phase. Overall, and something that we already saw in the first phase, the Congress, at over 25%, has the largest proportion of candidates with criminal charges against them; next is BSP with 22% followed by the BJP with 20%.
The Election Commission has made it mandatory for all candidates to disclose the criminal charges they are facing. This was aimed, apparently, at arresting the increasing “criminalisation” of politics. We do not know, as yet, how the electorate will respond to these disclosures. However, once the results are out, we will know whether, or not, voters shun politicians with criminal charges against them. If they do, the Commission will have served a useful purpose; if they do not, we have to seriously doubt our ability to understand what affects the electorate.
It is interesting to see how education affects the criminality in politics. A safe conjecture could be that more educated a candidate the less is the chance of him, or her, facing a criminal charge. Alternatively put, the proportion of criminally-charged candidates among the more educated should be less than those among the less educated. Only 28% of all candidates have at least a graduate degree — the rest have, at most, a school leaving certificate and a smattering of them are diploma holders. Our candidates, therefore, are not exactly very well-educated.
This is not surprising given that less than 10% of all Indians, even today, enter college. But, what is surprising is that about 21% of graduate and graduate-plus degree holders have been criminally charged; about 18% of the less educated candidates are criminally charged. At the very least, one starts wondering whether politics makes the more educated also more criminally prone!
This obviously raises the question of whether parties prefer the more educated as candidates. The three largest parties are the BJP, the INC and the BSP — in terms of the number of constituencies where they have candidates. Some 36% of the INC candidates have a graduate or graduate+ degree, BJP is similar at 37%. The BSP has only 31% candidates with college degrees and above.
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A quarter of all criminally charged BSP candidates have college and college+ degrees. This proportion changes drastically for the other two parties — 36 for the BJP and 39 for the INC. In short, if we are expecting education to get rid of criminality, we have a long way to go.
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