The journalist Pradeep Shinde who covered the trade very closely, once observed, ‘The entire kingdom of Varda Bhai rested on the distribution and collection of illicit hooch.’ ‘The concentrated liquid’, one of his reports states, ‘was filled in tubes of truck tyres, which are piled up in the deserted roads of Dharavi and taken over by the “wheelmen” or distributors. These carriers, ironically are by and large from the ranks of retired or suspended police personnel who have switched sides because of the lure of money. These are transported in gunny-bags, car trunks and other innocuous places.
‘In Bombay, it is easy to identify these carrier vehicles—the rear seats are invariably missing to provide more storage place. In areas which are called “garam sections” [hot spots], meaning areas that were devoid of friendly police protection and had the risk of meeting a hostile cop party, an escort vehicle was provided. Its function was to intercept police vehicles which would suddenly be blocked by a car whose ignition had conveniently failed.’ Witnessing this intricate yet simple web of transportation, the upper ranks of policemen soon realised that the trade had became a big menace. And slowly but surely, Varda Bhai was transforming from just another illicit liquor producer into a big don.
The dawn of Varda’s power came when his men could get anyone a ration card, illegal electricity, and water supply and make them a Bombay citizen faster than the local administration. People started pouring into the city in groups, especially from southern India—Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala—and with each day the slums lined across the central region began to grow. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Varadarajan, in a small way, had much to do in making Dharavi the biggest slum space in Asia. Such was the allure of his might, that people started working blindly for him. Press reports during the sixties peg his trade of illicit liquor to around 12 crore rupees a year. In those years, that was a huge footprint considering the clandestine nature of the trade.
The aura of his power had engulfed not only his trade but also the psyche of the people around him. An Antop Hill Police Station diary entry records a very sketchy detail about a man from Uttar Pradesh who went missing. He lived with his wife and two children at one of the first floor corridor-houses in Antop Hill. Every night, when Varadarajan’s men would gather to make liquor, the noise from the vessels would disturb his sleep so much that he complained to the local police, who poignantly chose to turn a deaf ear to it. When news of his complaint reached Varda’s men, it so vexed them that they simply just decided to shut him up ‘forever’ when he came down to yell at them one night. His name is still registered under the missing list at the Antop Hill Police Station records. However, as was widely reported in several newspapers at the time, his wife had another story to tell: she was adamant that the police was very handsomely paid to keep mum about the whole incident, she left the city soon after.
Varda, however, knew too well that he needed to be very far-sighted in his approach in handling the network that chose to function under his name. While he handicapped the intelligence network—as bribes ensured that the informers in the backstreets were kept satisfied—he also ensured that the other end was well oiled. A news report published during the sixties did not shy away from stating on record that ‘constables on the hooch beat made quite a sum. The rate for police protection for the addas [where hooch was sold in public] was Rs 5,000 per adda. Each police station had on an average 75 to 130 addas in its area. For the owners of the addas, the monthly turnover in just one suburban area with five addas is around Rs 50,000 per month’. The economics worked at 10 rupees per glass for diluted hooch, which means anywhere around 1 crore rupees a month.
He also divided his work area-wise, and let individuals from each local area handle their own business, making the areas more work-efficient while completely eliminating ego hassles. This only furthered healthy competition in upping returns, ensuring no individual or group encroached upon the other’s designated area and distribution network. To maintain the smooth running of his business, he had two trusted lieutenants to look after migrants from Tamil Nadu—Thomas Kurien known as Khaja Bhai and Mohinder Singh Vig known as Bada Soma.
It was not long before Varda slowly edged out rivals in the trade to the point of achieving a complete monopoly. It was also during these early days that he started getting cheap migrant labour into the city. Slowly, his men started grabbing government land and allocating space to the new entrants for a price and with that, south Indians began to dot the cotton mill-dominated central Bombay of Dadar, Sion Matunga, Dharavi,and Wadala.
Along with the hugely successful hooch trade, there was another trade that Varadarajan’s profits started to control—prostitution. Although Varda was never directly involved, he was aware that his men were pouring profits into this very vicious trade. As a former assistant commissioner of police observes, ‘He never stopped his men from letting the prostitution trade grow. That is where we would like to believe that he was equally involved.’ It was a very unique system, where eunuchs were given the reins of the flesh trade. And with a society that treated them with disdain, the eunuchs felt indebted to Varda Bhai’s system that put them in a position of power.
Innocent girls were brought from poverty-stricken areas in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and were left in the care of eunuchs for a few days. The eunuchs would follow a certain initiation system whereby initially they would lure the girls with the money they would earn by selling themselves. If their sweet talk did not work, force would be applied. Houses in Antop Hill and Dharavi became hotspots for this flesh trade and though Varda Bhai was never seen at the forefront of the business, he certainly was a benefactor of the trade.
Varda’s clout had increased ten-fold, but in the sixties, smuggling was still considered the ‘real innings’. The big share of the pie was still in gold smuggling with the business tilted to the side of Muslim dons who had the right contacts in Arabia. One of these was Haji Mastan.
5
Tamil Alliance
Over the years, Haji Mastan’s financial state had gone up remarkably. But the burning ambition to achieve more still remained. So, once when in the course of conversation his collaborator Bakhiya told him that he should first consider becoming Bambai ka Baadshah before venturing towards Gujarat, Mastan was badly stung. To the up and coming smuggler, such a blatant dismissal was a slap in the face. He made up his mind to take over the city but he knew he could not accomplish this alone. He needed the help of powerful musclemen to reach where he wanted to. Varda seemed to be the perfect man for the job. For, while Varda was a don based in central Bombay, he had the clout to get things done all across the city. His men like Nandu Satam could pull things off in the farthest coasts of Versova, Vasai, Virar, and even Palghar.
Mastan was waiting for an opportunity to befriend Varda. What followed was a strange twist of fate: it would seem as though destiny had conspired to get these two men together.
Varda was arrested for stealing antennae from the customs dock area. The consignment was meant for a top politician in the Union ministry. Initially, customs officers and the cops remained clueless about the mastermind behind the theft. However, a tip-off led them to pick up Varda from his den in Dharavi.
The captured Varda was told by the police that if he refused to tell them the whereabouts of the consignment they would be forced to unleash the third degree on him, as it was their neck on the line.
According to this possibly apocryphal story, as Varda was mulling over the threat in the night in the loneliness of the Azad Maidan lockup, he saw an affluent looking man, dressed in a white suit approaching him. The man was smoking a 555 cigarette and exuded a certain calmness. The man walked up to the iron bars, and not a single one of the cops on duty stopped him. Years of smuggling had made several customs officials Mastan’s friends and put them on his payroll; he had assured them that he would retrieve their consignment tactfully and that Varda must not be tortured.
r /> In the history of the Bombay Mafiosi, Mastan and Varda were the only two Tamilian dons. But ironically, the two were as different as chalk and cheese. While Mastan was known for his suave ways, Varda exuded the aura of a ruthless ruffian. Mastan walked very close to Varda and surprised him by greeting him in Tamil. ‘Vanakkam thalaivar,’ he said.
Varda was taken aback for a moment—both with the greeting in Tamil and the choice of words. ‘Thalaivar’ is a term of respect used to refer to the ‘chief’. No one had even spoken to Varda in a civil manner ever since he had been dumped in jail. So the irony of the greeting appeared starker. Of course it was being used partly because Mastan was using their common language so the policemen would not understand what they were saying; as he had a business offer for Varda, he could not take the risk of the police smelling an unholy alliance.
After striking up a conversation and developing a rapport with Varda, Mastan came straight to business, ‘Return the antennae to them and I will ensure that you make a lot more money.’ Varda was stunned. He could never imagine Mastan being the spokesperson for the customs and the police. Belligerent at this apparent presumptuousness, he replied brusquely, ‘What if I say I don’t have it and even if I do I don’t want to part with it?’
Mastan remained calm and composed as he spoke, ‘If you presume it will be my loss, then you are mistaken. I deal in gold and silver. I don’t touch such low value stuff that you will have to sell in Chor Bazaar. I am making an offer to you which no wise man can refuse. Return the antennae and be my partner in the gold business.’
Varda was surprised again. Mastan had said so much in such few words. He not only derided Varda and made his suspicions look small, he had also demonstrated his own stature and offered him a partnership in his business. At this juncture, Haji Mastan was the moneyed guy, the man with the pull, whereas Varda was still to make an indelible mark anywhere. So, when Mastan proposed the alliance, it was an offer Varda could not refuse.
‘What will you benefit from this?’ asked Varda. ‘I want to make friends with you as I want to use your muscle power and clout in the city,’ replied Mastan.
Varda, who had seen enough struggle in his life, must have thought that this was his only chance of walking away from certain torture and humiliation. He agreed to Mastan’s offer and disclosed where he had hidden his stolen consignment. Policemen in the lock-up still remember that strong handshake of two very different looking men—one in a sophisticated suit and polished boots smoking an expensive cigarette and the other in a white vest, veshti (dhoti), and slippers.
Customs officials got their consignment and saved their jobs, Mastan got his partner to help him achieve his new-found dreams. Customs officials kept their word with Mastan and released Varda.
As Varda returned to his den, people assumed he would be in a nasty mood and would unleash a bout of terror to show he still ruled the roost. His men thought he would be eager to prove that his detention should not be misconstrued as a sign of his waning power. Instead, Varda returned a happier man. He immediately called for a celebration. Even his close aides were a bit baffled at this strange behaviour. What also surprised them was the fact that Varda had actually agreed to return the consignment of antennae to the customs officials. It was nothing but a loss of face and revenue. But instead of displaying his foul temper, Varda ordered a public feast for his people.
They did not know that Varda had stooped to conquer. He might have lost the consignment, but he had struck a bigger deal. He had always wanted an alliance with the Muslim mafia, but he had managed to get a partnership on a platter without having to work for it at all.
Earlier, at the jail, Mastan and Varda had struck up the deal, simply by a few well chosen words in Tamil, and mostly through eye contact, the perfect tacit contract. After his release, Varda spent another week or two laying low, assimilating the fact that he, a small time crook, was now muscleman for the powerful, rising Haji Mastan.
Varda knew he could never penetrate into the smuggling trade, as the margins and the territory already came marked. This was closest to the profitable smuggling business. A shrewd Varda saw an opportunity in stealing legally imported goods and passing them off as smuggled goods. For this he had to tap his operatives at the Bombay Port Trust Docks. Crime Branch officials who probed the matter during the late sixties realised that the networks were made based on Varda’s contacts during his days as a porter. It was a very clandestine and calculated scam that took shape. Cheap migrant labour from Thirunelveli found work in the docks and soon many networks were formed and strengthened.
The cartel took roots as a nexus was formed between the labourers, the customs officials, and officers at the Bombay Port Trust, through Varda’s calculated shrewdness. Over a period of time a pattern emerged: once the goods were unloaded at the docks, in the fifty-three sheds of around 30,000 square feet, cargo would miraculously get transformed into ‘missing cargo’.
The goods would be scattered around the docks by labourers who were recruited by Varda. The goods would then be classified as cases of wrong delivery, missing goods, misplaced goods, short landing, and everything else that could go wrong in the transporter’s books. The importer would file a missing complaint and get insurance for the value lost, and the goods would come under the custody of Varda, who along with the importer would share the insurance amount and release the cargo to the importer for half the price. Initially, importers complained of the crime, but when they realised that they could get the cargo at half the price by giving a share of the insurance to Varda, even they fell in.
The insurance companies, who were the only losers in the game, later realised that the ‘missing’ goods were first spread across the docks. So they became more alert to ensure that such thefts do not occur.
To counter this, Varda came up with a completely new strategy. The ‘missing’ goods, spread across the docks would lie there until the insurance companies would despair, and pay off the importers. Meanwhile, the authorities at the port trust and the customs were paid off handsomely by Varda. They would keep the goods in their places until the insurance companies lost interest, and would then, after a pre-designated period, release them as ‘unclaimed’. Varda would then waltz in, right under everybody’s nose, and make away with the goods.
A policeman from the Crime Branch, said, ‘Even the Muslim dons lacked this kind of shrewdness. The system was very calculated and showed the extent to which Varda could have his way. Even with crores of rupees at stake, there was no bloodshed, nobody lost his head, since Varda was intelligent enough to know how to plug every level right from the steamship agents who got to know if the cargo was worth stealing to the last leg, where the importer was willing to part with his share.’
Illicit liquor, eunuch-run prostitution, dock theft, and pushing the highly vulnerable south Indian migrant population into criminal activities: all of this was slowly transforming Varda Bhai into somewhat of a philanthropist slumlord. To law enforcers, of course, he remained a merciless mobster surrounded by ‘Madrasi minions’.
Varda had the pulse of the crowd. He was always available at his house, where people crowded around him with their problems. The police at that time said that if anybody ever needed Varda’s protection in the city, the easiest and perhaps the only way to tug at his heartstrings was a good tragic story of struggle. The swelling crowd and settlers in pockets like Dharavi, Chembur, Matunga, Antop Hill, Koliwada, and far suburbs made for a strong vote bank. This did not go unnoticed at the annual celebration at Matunga’s Ganesh pandal which was organised by Varda. Being a religious man, Varda began spending lavishly on the Ganesh pandals outside Matunga station. With his stature, grew the size and opulence of the pandal. Many celebrities would come to the pandal to pray. It is rumoured that even Jaya Bachchan had prayed here for the life of her superstar husband Amitabh, when he was injured during the filming of the movie Coolie.
Polic
e officials recall how smooth a talker Varda was. They recollect instances when his men, who habitually dodged the police, would come and surrender willingly at his behest. ‘He kept both sides of the rung happy. He would keep a tab on each of his soldiers. The minute he knew that the accused was wanted at the lower rungs, he would negotiate with the police and get the accused in front of them. Once inside, the accused was confident that he would be bailed out. In turn, once his men were inside the jail, they would start the second rung of recruitment for Varda,’ says a senior police official adding, ‘there was a designated hotel at Sion Koliwada where so-called surrenders took place.’ ‘The maximum number of arrests has taken place at this hotel over cutting chai and bun maska on the table than out on the field,’ says veteran crime journalist, Pradeep Shinde.
After striking his alliance with Varda and greasing more palms of customs officials, Mastan’s beliefs in the right collaborations and connections grew manifold. Also, Mastan concluded that as his ill-gotten empire was growing, he had to be wary of cops. He realised that if he wanted to play it safe, he had to befriend some policemen and politicians. Then, Mastan became aware that while foreign gold was popular in Bombay, silver from Bombay was in great demand abroad. He started importing gold from Africa and the Middle East and starting selling silver bricks known as chandi ki eente to countries from where he was importing gold.
As Mastan’s empire was growing tremendously, it became almost impossible for him to supervise each and every operation, so he enlisted the help of a man called Yusuf Patel. Yusuf Patel was Mastan’s acolyte and considered Mastan his mentor. While learning the tricks of the trade from Mastan, his fortunes grew. Yusuf knew that the silver bricks that Mastan sent abroad were considered of the purest quality and even had a ‘brand’ name: ‘Mastan ki Chaandi’. His honesty in the business had earned him his credibility.