Commuter Accessory Systems for Suburban Bombay Trains / Street Vendors Mimetic Scheme / Monuments and Edifices

 

Street Vendors Mimetic Scheme

The following paper was written for the project Substitute Cities ‘Ersatz Stadt'- Seven Islands and a metro, 2003

Volksbeuhne theatre, Berlin

The preamble of the Indian Constitution states that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular democratic republic State and shall secure to its citizen's justice, social, economic and political equality of status and opportunity.

Article 19(1) (g) gives the Indian citizen a fundamental right to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. This right is limited only by the right of the State i.e. the Indian government, to prescribe professional or technical qualifications for certain trades or professions, and the right of the State to create monopolies in certain trade, business or industry in the interest of the general public. Otherwise a citizen's right to carry on a trade or any profession of his / her choice is absolute and the Govt can impose ‘reasonable' restrictions in the interests of the citizens. The interpretation of the term ‘citizen' is always restrictive and conveniently applies to only a certain section of the people. In the case of the hawkers about whom I intend to speak, the various interpretations of the term ‘reasonable' restrictions in the interests of the citizens' is unreasonable as well as excludes them from being citizens.

Take for example the Bombay High Court order that sets apart 131 hawking zone roads. The number count of 1997 according an official survey placed the hawker population at a hundred thousand. The said survey did not consider vendors on private properties, lands belonging to the Bombay Port Trust, Railways and other central government owned land. The real figure according to the general secretary of Bombay Hawkers Association though, is that there are 300,000 such hawkers. The Bombay high court order demarcating the hawking zones can accommodate only around 17,000 hawkers making the 283,000 hawkers illegal that under no circumstances are ‘reasonable'.

Secondly, according to Mr. Satam ex Mayor of Bombay who started a drive to evict hawkers “in order to restore Mumbai's roads and pavements to its ‘citizens' excludes the hawker's rights to citizenship.

The hawkers are an essential part of the service sector and are basically retrenched labour and fresh migrants. They form 65 % of the total labor force of Mumbai. The state government in its zeal to enforce law and order time and again only violates the right to livelihood of the poorer sections. The BMC has been cracking down on the ‘menace' of hawkers ruthlessly demolishing their makeshift stalls and evicting them. Their mandate being a17-year-old Supreme Court order that bans hawking on the city's main streets. The order prevents them from doing business using handcarts or tables. It disallows vending after 10 p.m. and cooking on the street.

Exhorted by the various groups sympathetic to the cause of the hawkers, a task force had been appointed for looking into the subject. A letter was issued on the 3 rd of May 2001from the Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation (UDPA), requesting all State Governments to halt all evictions against hawkers "till such time that the policy on street vendors is finalised".

But according to the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation, a Ministry note cannot be placed above a Bombay High Court order, and hence the BMC proceeded full steam.

The latest development in the imbroglio is the contempt of court notice issued on the Bombay Municipal Corporation on the 4 th of April 2002 by the Supreme Court.

 

Goregaon station market - a case study

Mumbai is divided into 6 zones that are further divided into 24 wards.

Goregaon a northern suburb on the Western line falls under the P ward / South of the Municipal Corporation of Bombay. It covers an area of 24.44 Sq. Km with a population of about 400,000.

According to the official records, the ward has 2000 hawkers. Of which only 197 hold licenses. Around half of these hold licenses pre 1978 which is when the Bombay Municipal Corporation stopped giving licenses as since they thought that the streets were already too congested to allow hawking on them. The only licenses that were being allotted post '78 were to cobblers on grounds of reservations for backward castes. In the Goregaon market, the current tally is -48 pitch (1 mtr X 1mtr space without any construction) and 30 stall licenses and to handicapped persons for operating public telephone booths (current tally 77). Currently only the second category (handicapped) are being issued licenses. Licenses in other categories obviously pre '78 are 12 and 30 for stall and pitch respectively.

In the year 1988 a receipt system – RRC (refuse removal charges) was introduced whereby hawkers paid the municipality daily cleaning charges (between Rs.5 and Rs.15 which was later increased to Rs.30 and Rs.100) and were issued a receipt. However, in 1998, following a High Court order the system was stopped. Thus withdrawing whatever little legitimacy their trade had gained through the receipt system.

The Sr. Inspector of the Goregaon ward, department of licenses informed me that their vans regularly patrol the area under their jurisdiction to drive away the hawkers. The municipal corporation had been earning Rs.3 to Rs.4 million a day, or Rs.14.6 billion annually, through the 'receipt' system. This money perhaps is now collected as bribes. The fact that the vans do make regular rounds was corroborated by the president of the hawkers Union - “But the officers are understanding since they are also doing their job”he told me. They have an ‘arrangement' that made things easier for them by this ‘arrangement' they get a tip off before a raid. Since otherwise the when the BMC and the police conduct their surprise ‘raids', they have to disperse in a moment with all their goods on their person- or else the goods are either destroyed or confiscated and retrieving them is an arduous task involving phenomenal fines and red-tape. Of course since their survival is at stake, they have little option but to swallow the losses and return to their business at the same spot till the next raid. With the current order for maintaining status quo the evictions are carried out only on receiving complaints from the residents and hence less frequent. The degree of uncertainty prevents the vendors from having elaborate structures to display their wares- their self is the only establishment. Unions regularly collect money from its members help retrieve any confiscated goods.

The Unions have been instrumental in getting some benefits for street vendors. Bombay is one of the three cities where there is a strong movement among the hawkers to get organized under unions. The other two cities are Ahmedabad and Calcutta. The largest, and most influential, union in Mumbai is the Bombay Hawkers' Union.

Goregaon has the presence of a CITU hawkers union (Centre for Indian Trade Unions a Marxist trade union movement), a Shiv Sena Union and the Bombay Hawkers Union. The CITU has strength of 400 and the Shiv Sena about 40 members. 900 hawkers are registered with Bombay Hawkers' Union.

The Goregaon Market is right outside the suburban local railway station. The railway stations and vicinities of housing colonies is where the concentration of hawkers all over Bombay is. The Municipal authorities want to relocate the markets away from these spots to hawker's plazas and earmarked hawking zones. The vendors complain that the pace of the city neither affords time nor energy for commuters to take a detour, and go shopping in a plaza not on their way home. Also the authorities demand unrealistic amounts for allotment of spaces in these plazas and zones that are way beyond the means of the vendors

The P Ward has no demarcated hawking zone. There were plans in 1995 of reserving two areas as hawking zones- Santosh Nagar and the Aarey Colony. Both the spots are about 3-4 kilometers away from the station and if the markets were relocated here, accessing them would involve extra commuting on part of the clientele. When the proposal was put up in the ward councilor's meeting it was not for reasons of inaccessibility but a failure to reach a consensus on other technical issues that the plan was scrapped. The tussle over the evictions and relocation of hawkers has at least two other angles of contention -that of votes and political control over Bombay and secondly the property and land prices. The high land prices in Bombay are a known. The eviction of the hawkers in certain areas or the reluctance from housing colonies to allow the hawkers to ply their trade around their localities is to maintain these high rates. Of the areas chosen for relocation in Goregaon one has extremely low density of population, and the other comparatively much lower real estate rates.

The hawkers form a major vote bank for the politicians who intervene from time to time to earn their goodwill.The ex-Deputy Municipal Commisioner Mr. Khairnar was a controversial figure for these reasons. He was also known as the Demolition Man because of his drives against illegal constructions and hawkers. He had a love –hate relation ship with the political parties due to his actions on the hawkers. In June 1994 Khairnar was suspended when he levelled serious allegations against the then Congress chief minister (Sharad Pawar) and some senior municipal corporation officials. In 1996 the Sena-BJP government, furious at his statements against Sena chief Bal Thackeray, dismissed him from service. He was reinstated after four years. The Congress Govt in 2000 was unwilling to grant him an extension on his services because of his anti hawker drives. The hawkers though domiciles of Bombay were mostly North Indians and votes bank the Congress depended on. The Sena – BJP coallition though far from pleased with Khairnar stood by his demolitions since it meant erosion of the ruling coalition's base.

The hawkers are an indispensible part of the urban social order and an integral part of the economy with an annual turnover of about 159 million Rupees. If legalised and regulated, annually this sector could earn the deficit-strapped municipal corporation revenue of 14.5 million Rupees. It is the failing of the urban development bodies that they have been left out of the planning.

Looking at the broader picture, the hawkers sell goods that are made in homes or by small-scale indigenous manufacturing units. The hawkers thus sustain not only these local enterprises but also indirectly the jobs created by them. The amazing similarity between the various goods they sell is that a lot of them have brand names and sometimes packaging that imitates foreign products. These products are simulacral but cannot be termed as fakes and even give good value for money. People for whom the branded goods are out of reach mitigate their desires through these objects. The mimetic nature of these products does not allow for any other marketing except through the informal markets. More over low overheads and infrastructural costs of this strategy of marketing is what allows the products to be priced in an affordable bracket. The nemesis of local industries that already face the threat of being rendered obsolete by the multinationals is confronted with a hurdle created by the comprador state.

The lower middle classes and other workers from the informal sector depend on these roadside stalls for their cheap meals. The cheap meals are also what make the market an area of social activity. At nights the Goregaon market as many others in Bombay under goes a transformation. The day- time stalls are replaced or joined by carts that sell foodstuff. The aromas of the various fast foods attract hoards of people who go to the roadside bars or cant afford to eat in restaurants.

Conclusion

The hawkers are frequently looked upon as a menace, and accused of causing congestion and obstructing vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The role of the middle and upper classes has been anti hawker even though they also depend on them for certain shopping necessities. These already privileged classes have been promised by the various governments of the state of Maharashtra that Bombay will be the Singapore of tomorrow. Their promised land will have, airconditioned malls and high-rises, wide streets and fly overs with unobstructed traffic flow. The impediment in achieving this dream of the Asian success story is certain sections of people who have to be swept under the carpet. The various citizen's fora, environment conscious groups, heritage protection groups, and other elitist organizations are active in clearing the way. They have extravagant concern for trees, animals, nonliving things or their immediate surroundings and a great apathy towards human beings not from their class. The builder lobbies indirectly manipulate these citizen's initiatives and government mechanisms to claim the spaces within the city by clearing tenements and edging out this ‘non-statutory encumbrance'. The comfort and the profits of progress are only for the oligarchic middle classes and upwards.

The people who are now being elbowed out of the economy are the same people who were invited to Bombay when the mills were set up. People who migrated from the coastal regions and other parts of Maharashtra to work as labour for the mills. The 1982 strike saw a number of mills closing down and 200,000 workers being laid off. 20% of this retrenched labour is now earning their lively hood as hawkers.

Also a great number of fresh migrants come into the city each day in search of jobs. Though there is absolutely no possibility of the organised sector accommodating them, the city absorbs them. But ask the disgruntled middle class and they will voice their venomous intolerant opinion, heaping their insecurity on to these migrants- that these ‘outsiders' are going to take over and that will see the end of this city. One is blissfully oblivious or in denial of the fact that even our ancestors must have migrated here and not very long ago.

The city of Bombay has been made by migrants but the section which was an essential part of making of the city now have no right to citizenship.