Haji Mastan

Mastan Haider Mirza, popularly known as Haji Mastan, Bawa /Sultan Mirza (1 March 1926 - 25 June 1994) was an Indian smuggler, films financer and real estate businessman. Mastan was a Tamil Muslim who was fluent in Tamil and spoke in broken Hindi. He learnt Hindi much later in the late 1970s.
Mastan became the first celebrity gangster of the city of Bombay. He would be often seen at parties and functions rubbing shoulders with politicians, Bollywood actors and actresses and businessmen. His unique traits of dressing completely in white clothes, wearing white shoes, smoking costly cigarrettes and driving a white mercedes made him a "style icon" among the poor and uneducated Muslim youths in the ghetto areas of Bhendi Bazar, Dongri and Nagpada in south Mumbai. They tried to imitate him.
Mastan was known to be a shrewd, smooth-talking dealmaker. He had a virtual strangle-hold on the smuggling business in Mumbai for almost two decades and made a fortune. He would smartly manipulate archaic laws in real estate to earn profits.

Born in 1926 in Pannaikulam, near Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, Haji Mastan originally known as Mastan Haider Mirza at the age of 8 migrated with his father in Mumbai. The father and son worked long hours at a small cycle repairing shop at Charni Road which wasn’t enough to feed the family. Each night while walking home under the glittering street lights, Mastan admired the sprawling bungalows by the sea side belonging to the rich and famous and aspired to have one someday. In his early twenties, he began working in the docks where he befriended an elderly Arab gentleman who was searching for someone to help him smuggle gold biscuits out of the docks without getting suspected. The scrawny innocent looking Mastan was a perfect fit and soon he began to hide gold biscuits in his clothes and sneaked them out to the Arab without getting caught. Mastan began making a neat sum of money.

Later Mastan joined hands with Sukkur Narayan Bakhia, a smuggler from Gujarat to control the contraband smuggled into Mumbai and Daman from the Gulf countries. Mastan made a fortune in no time and soon fulfilled his childhood dream of owning a sea-facing bungalow at Peddar Road, one of the most upmarket places in Mumbai. Interestingly, he virtually lived his life in a small room built on the terrace of his bungalow.

Realizing that film financing was an unorganized business and film producers often struggled for money, Mastan ventured into film financing and eventually turning into a film producer himself. He also had business interests in real estate, electronics goods and hotels. He owned several electronic shops in Manish Market on Mohammad Ali Road.

Mastan was always friends with the gang leaders in those times. It is said that when inter-gang rivalry in Mumbai began increasing, Mastan called all top gang leaders together and recommended to split Mumbai between the gangs so that they could freely operate without any confrontation from rival gangs.

Mastan did not operate a gang of his own. He depended on the muscle-power from gang leaders like Karim Lala and Varadarajan Mudaliar to carry out his smuggling operations and intimidate rivals and debtors. Mastan and Varadarajan were best friends as they both hailed from Tamil Nadu and spoke Tamil. When Varadarajan died in Tamil Nadu as an impoverished man, Mastan hired a private chartered plane to bring his body to Mumbai for final rites.

Mastan had many friends in Bollywood such as Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Dharmendra, Feroz Khan and Sanjeev Kumar.

During the Indian Emergency (1975 - 77), he was imprisoned. Whilst in prison, he was influenced by the ideals of politician Jaiprakash Narayan. In prison, he began learning Hindi. Later he went on haj, and thereafter came to be referred as Haji Mastan.

He devoted time for his meetings with the poor, solving their problems through financial assistance and his contacts.

Haji Mastan became a Muslim leader in 1984 and formed Dalit Muslim Surakhsha Maha Sangh in 1985, which had Doulatram Kawle as a corporator. Haji Mastan died on 9 May, 1994 because of cancer.

The 1975 film Deewaar was loosely based on Haji Mastan's life. The 2010 film "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai" was heavily based on Mastan's life although it was not completely non-fiction. Actor Ajay Devgn portrayed the character of Haji Mastan as Sultan Mirza in the film while Emraan Hashmi portrays underworld don Dawood Ibrahim as Shoaib Khan.

Haji Mastan had no son so he informally adopted Sundar Shaekhar. He raised him as his own son, and the latter now runs his political party named 'Bharatiya Minorities Suraksha Mahasangh'. Shaekhar who was born Hindu didn't convert to Islam, but Mastan used to call him "Suleman Mirza".