Hawkers' Movement in Kolkata, 1975-2007

NOTES hawkers’ cause. More than 32 street-based Hawkers’ Movement hawker unions, with an affiliation to the mainstream political parties other than the in Kolkata, 1975-2007 ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), better known as CPI(M), constitute the body of the HSC. The CPI(M)’s labour wing, Centre Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), has a hawker branch called “Calcutta Street Hawkers’ In Kolkata, pavement hawking is n recent years, the issue of hawkers Union” that remains outside the HSC. The an everyday phenomenon and (street vendors) occupying public space present paper seeks to document the hawk- hawkers represent one of the Iof the pavements, which should “right- ers’ movement in Kolkata and also the evo- fully” belong to pedestrians alone, has lution of the mechanics of management of largest, more organised and more invited much controversy. The practice the pavement hawking on a political ter- militant sectors in the informal of hawking attracts critical scholarship rain in the city in the last three decades, economy. This note documents because it stands at the intersection of with special reference to the activities of the hawkers’ movement in the city several big questions concerning urban the HSC. The paper is based on the author’s governance, government co-option and archival and field research on this subject. and reflects on the everyday forms of resistance (Cross 1998), property nature of governance. and law (Chatterjee 2004), rights and the Operation Hawker, 1975 very notion of public space (Bandyopadhyay In 1975, the representatives of Calcutta 2007), mass political activism in the context M unicipal Corporation (henceforth corpora- of electoral democracy (Chatterjee 2004), tion), Calcutta Metropolitan Development survival strategies of the urban poor in the Authority (CMDA), and the public works context of neoliberal reforms (Bayat 2000), d epartment (PWD) jointly took a “decision” and so forth. As the studies on “street on the removal of the hawkers from the vendors” in different cities reveal, each city pavements of the city to give it back to the has its own histories of street vending and pedestrians (The Statesman, 21 March 1975). own ways of carrying it through a combi- Before this, the state and the municipal gov- nation of crackdown resettlement and ernment had made sporadic attempts to negotiation. In India, however, academic evict or resettle hawkers that yielded only research on the phenomenon of hawking contextual solutions. In 1952, for example, is still in its embryonic form although so- the then Chief Minister Bidhan Roy endeav- cial activists have been writing on various oured to evict the book-hawkers along Col- issues affecting the sector (Kiswar 2005) lege Street so that the magni ficent colonial with particular reference to the cases of architecture of Presidency College and the Delhi and Mumbai. But in Kolkata, though University of Calcutta could be visible from a hawking is an everyday phenomenon and distance. In order to keep a constant flow of hawkers represent one of the largest, more books at a cheap price available, the teach- organised, and perhaps, more militant ers of Presidency College requested the chief sectors within the informal economy, the minister not to evict the book-hawkers. The academic literature on the subject is virtu- stalls thrived under middle class patronage The author is thankful to JU-SYLFF Programme for financing his doctoral ally non-existent. So an investigation of (Amritabazar, 21 July 1952). project. He extends his thanks to Samita Sen, the problem specific to the context of Kol- In the 1950s, however, the usual way to Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, Jayanta Sengupta, kata is the need of the hour. check encroachment was to convert erst- Joyashree Roy, Abhishek Basu, Ritwik In 1996, following Operation Sunshine while stables and wayside vacant public Bhattacharyya, Sulagna Maitra, Bodhisattva (OS), which was a move by the Left-ruled lands into “hawkers’ corners”. Thus, in 1955, Kar, Rajarshi Dasgupta, Partha Chatterjee, Ranjan Chakrabarti and Kunal Chattopadhyay municipal corporations and the state gov- Bidhan Roy gave permission to build a for listening to and reading several drafts of ernment to forcibly remove hawkers from hawkers’ corner adjacent to the “Jogubabu the article along with other parts of his thesis selected pavements in Kolkata, a very new Bazar” and the residence of Sir Asutosh and for suggesting improvements. mode of collective resistance developed Mukherjee, in Bhawanipore region. The Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay and very quickly organised itself under the large stable opposite the Greek Orthodox ([email protected]) is a banner of the Hawker Sangram Committee Church in Russa Road (now Syamaprosad research fellow at Jadavpur University, (HSC). In the post-OS phase, the HSC has Mukherjee Street) was very soon convert- West Bengal. been the most powerful defender of the ed into “Kalighat Refugee Hawkers’ 116 april 25, 2009 vol xliv no 17 EPW Economic & Political Weekly NOTES C orner”. Eviction of the hawkers became a could earn a profit of Rs 1 lakh in 1975-76. Esplanade (Anandabazar, 26 March 1975). routine act for the corporation during the Samaddar attributes this revenue loss of It is important to register the fact that the 1960s with the coming of fresh refugees the markets to the “hawker menace”. But stalls located along the lanes inside from East Pakistan. Immediately after the before 1972, no centralised effort was B urrabazaar were left undisturbed. The death of Roy, an eviction drive took place in undertaken to settle the hawkers’ issue. In unauthorised stalls in front of hospital the Esplanade Tram Depot (adjacent to the 1975, the situation of the Hogg market walls as well as the stalls along Rash- Central Business District (CBD)). But the d eteriorated further. The plight of the mar- behari Avenue, Shyambazaar and Seal- evicted hawkers were soon rehabilitated ket (which contributed 50% of the corpo- dah were not destroyed flouting the earli- near the location they had occupied ration’s total income from markets) might er plan (Anandabazar, 8 April 1975). The (Anandabazar, 11 April 1962). The new re- have enraged an activist admini strator like s election of places where the “operation” habilitation market was named after Bid- Samaddar. During his tenure as corpora- was to be conducted thus provoked han Roy (Bidhan Market). As this drive was tion administrator, the CMDA came up c ertain interrogations. backed by a sound rehabilitation scheme, it with a plan to upgrade and e xtend the did not provoke much fracas in the city. municipal markets. Although there were Hawkers vs Retail In 1969, during the short tenure of the some minor differences between the two If we closely look at the operation of the United Front government, Deputy Chief agencies in the matter of the plan, both of local economies in Kolkata, we will under- Minister Jyoti Basu ordered the police to them agreed that before the expansion of stand how in some regions the retail sector evict the hawkers at Gariahat region (the the markets it was essential to “identify saved the hawkers and how in some other centre of the southern part of the city and and quantify” and “if necessary to evict” regions it went against the practice of hawk- a thriving retail upmarket at that time). the hawkers, especially in front of the ing depending on the nature of economic But this drive did not materialise due to the l egal retail markets (Samaddar 1978: 48). activity that the two groups performed. intervention of Ballygunj Hawkers’ Union The areas involved in the first phase of Thus in the lanes within Burrabazaar, the dominated by the Worker’s Party (The States- the proposed drive against encroachers hawkers were not evicted because they man, 29 November 1969). In 1972, the Con- covered Chittaranjan Avenue (from Madan generally sold lower quality goods and/or gress government ventured to evict the Street Crossing to Lenin Sarani Junction), those items the mahajan or the large retailer hawkers occupying the pavements across parts of Bentinck Street (from its crossing found it more profitable to sell through the Chowringhee (now Jawaharlal Nehru with R N Mukherjee Road to the junction them. Even in Shyambazaar and Gariahat Road). Again the mission proved to be a of Lenin Sarani and Jawharlal Nehru the hawkers often acted as “commissioned futile one (Samaddar 1978: 49). Road), parts of Jawharlal Nehru Road agents” to the shopkeepers. A contempo- As mentioned, in 1975, the three wings from its crossing with the Lenin Sarani up rary survey by the police department of the government, CMDA, PWD and the to its crossing with Lindsay Street – and also attested to the fact (Anandabazar, 7 April corporation expressed their resolve to certain portions of the Esplanade-East, from 1975). For such a mutual dependence and evict the hawkers from some of the streets the crossing of Lenin Sarani to Old Court clash of interests between the established of the city. The drive was officially called House Street (Anandabazar, 21 March traders and the hawkers it was difficult for “Operation Hawker”. What was the motive 1975). The geographic area that the first the government to generate equal incen- behind such a drive? phase of OH involved corresponded to the tive to clear the pavement everywhere in The corporation had nine retail markets bulk of the CBD of the city. The majority of a similar vein. Thus, a close review of the in its ownership at that time. These the hawkers were non-Bengali Muslims. operation sites, even 32 years after the inci- markets were scattered in different pock- It was decided that a second or third dent, reveals that the areas cleared of street ets of the city.

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