Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE August 2018 Right to Sell: Politics of Informal Retail in the Neoliberal Era. Anirban Acharya Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Acharya, Anirban, "Right to Sell: Politics of Informal Retail in the Neoliberal Era." (2018). Dissertations - ALL. 908. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/908 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT This is a study on the puzzling case of neoliberal pro-market states enacting policies that attempt to curb the competitive and profitable businesses of urban street vendors. Ac- cordingly this project asks a simple question: if neoliberal governance of the economy prescribes a positive disposition towards the market system driven by selfish pecuniary gain, then why are informal street vendors regularly evicted and harassed by neoliberal states in cities around the world? To answer this, I analyze the literature on neoliberalism and the informal economy, and provide new theoretical insight into the internal contra- diction of neoliberal principles in the context of the informal economy of selling. I argue that the conflict with informal street vendors and the states is a manifestation of this con- tradiction. Through my field research on informal street vendors (or hawkers) of Kolkata I demonstrate this contradiction by analyzing the political economy of street vending. Specifically I study the social movement of hawkers and show how the right to sell in the city of Kolkata is negotiated and configured in the neoliberal era. I argue that this case of Kolkata hawkers is a symptom of a larger struggle over spaces of selling in the neolib- eral era which has been overlooked in my discipline. Thus, I hope this project will provide fresh avenues of future research on the political economy of selling through studies of the struggle between the forces of formalization and informalization of retail spaces. RIGHT TO SELL: POLITICS OF INFORMAL RETAIL IN THE NEOLIBERAL ERA Anirban Acharya B.A(Hons.), Economics, Jadavpur University, India, 1998. M.A., Economics, Jadavpur University, India, 2000. M.Phil, Development Studies, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, India, 2004. M.A., Political Science, Syracuse University, USA, 2007. Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Syracuse University August 2018 Copyright c Anirban Acharya, August 20 2018 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgement I am grateful to my professors and colleagues in the Department of Political Science, Syra- cuse University. The intellectual and financial support from my department helped me immensely and was indispensable in reaching my academic goals. I am sincerely grateful to Candy Brooks and Jacquie Meyers for their patience, support, and constant help for all these years. The generous support from the Bharati South Asia Grant helped me tremen- dously in my research. I am grateful to my advisor Mehrzad Boroujerdi and my co-advisor Subho Basu. They have provided me with valuable guidance to navigate and organize a morass of disparate thoughts into a coherent argument. All along this somewhat challenging journey they dis- cussed my material for countless hours, providing me with excellent constructive criticism that improved my work at every step. I don't have adequate words to express my grati- tude for my committee members Margarita Estevez-Abe and Glyn Morgan who have en- couraged me tirelessly. Without their important advice, unmatched kindness, and con- stant encouragement to persevere, it would have been impossible to complete this work. Not only have they helped me make crucial tactical decisions regarding completion, but have also given me important growth opportunities to work with them in research and teaching. Detailed discussion about urban politics in India with my committee member Sandeep Banerjee helped me fine tune and ground my work. My friend and colleague Is- han Ashutosh and Cyril Ghosh have provided me with valuable insight about the refer- ences, arrangement, and presentation of the material. I thank Ritajyoti Bandyopadhyay for helping me with important research contacts in Kolkata. His advice were extremely useful in the field. I am thankful to the Members of iv the Hawker Sangram Committee and hawkers of Kolkata who afforded me their precious time in a moment where every day brought new challenges and struggles. I am grateful to Shaktiman Ghosh, Sudipta Mitra, and Murad Hussein, for providing me with precious primary documents and friendly support during my research. In many ways the possibility of conducting political and economic research on hawkers of Kolkata today stands on the hard and meticulous work of these activists and organizers. My parents Amit Acharya and Shila Acharya, my brother Ananyo Acharya, and my sister-in-law Tanusree Acharya believed in my abilities and have encouraged me all along. They provided me with unimaginable support and without their unconditional love and sacrifice I would never be able to lead an academic life. I am forever indebted to my partner in life Michelle Leombrone who supported and helped me remain focused in this intellectual journey. I am grateful for her grace and pa- tience. My parents in-law Doris Leombrone and Joe Leombrone have always blessed me with their warmth and kinds wishes. I am forever grateful to them. This is also a humble opportunity for me to thank and celebrate my closest of friends Supriyo Ghosh, (Late) Doctor Shreyas Roy, Emily Stowell, Alex Ramsaroop, Andrew Gunter, Nalin Tiwari, Jyoti Tiwari, Vinay Ramani, and Desire´eHern´andez,who have sacrificed their valuable time and energy in helping me with life and keeping alive a sense of humor. They gave me a sense of belonging and family. This work will never be complete without the wonderful professional opportunities Le Moyne College afforded me for all these years. I must acknowledge the intellectual ful- fillment I experienced there. My colleagues and students in Le Moyne College provided me a wonderfully supportive academic environment where I got the precious opportu- nity to teach, grow, and learn. Very special thanks to Delia Popescu, Matthew Loveland, Jonathan Parent, James Snyder, Mario Saenz, Irene Liu, Douja Mamelouk, Orlando Ocampo, Ann Ryan, Maura Brady, James Hannan, Deborah Cromley, Kate Costello-Sullivan, Farha v Ternikar, Chandan Jha, Wayne Grove, Paul Blackley, Dixie Blackly, Edward Shephard, Jim Joseph, Mary Collins, Dipankar Rai, Ed Ruchalski, Daniel Kane, Roula Creighton, Royce Robertson, Inga Barnello, Elizabeth Scanlon, and David McCallum, for their mag- nanimity and support on uncountable occasions. Last, but never the least, this dissertation won't be possible without the workers of the world who produced the commodities and services I used to survive and write. I am thankful for their labor. Anirban Acharya, Syracuse, New York August, 2018 vi Contents List of Tables x 1 A Puzzle 1 1.1 Introduction . .1 1.1.1 Introducing the Puzzle . .3 1.1.2 Old Skin in New Ceremony? . .7 1.2 Analyzing the Puzzle . 12 1.2.1 Question One . 12 1.2.2 Question Two . 14 1.2.3 Question Three . 17 1.3 The Informal and the Formal . 21 1.3.1 Spaces of Selling and Selling of Spaces . 22 1.3.2 Enterprise and Employment . 25 1.4 Contemporary Capitalism and Informal Labor in Retail . 27 1.5 Conclusion . 32 2 Theorizing Neoliberalism and Informality 33 2.1 Introduction . 33 2.2 Conceptual problems . 35 2.2.1 Conceptual Problems with Neoliberalism . 36 vii 2.2.2 Neoliberalism and Asymmetry of Usage . 37 2.2.3 Conceptual Problems with Informal Sector . 38 2.3 Questions of State and Commerce . 40 2.3.1 State, Commerce, and Wealth in the Longue Dur´ee . 41 2.3.2 Modern Transformations . 44 2.4 Core Components of Neoliberalism . 49 2.5 Observations on (In)formal Economy . 69 3 Politics of Street Vending 80 3.1 The Lay of the Land . 80 3.1.1 The Question of Hawkers . 85 3.2 Street Vending in Calcutta . 87 3.2.1 Forgetting and Remembering . 89 3.2.2 Political and Civil Societies . 91 3.3 Contours of Conflict . 94 3.3.1 Arguments Against Exclusion . 100 3.3.2 Analysis of Conflict and Market Society . 104 3.4 Road to Sunshine . 107 3.4.1 Politics of Selling Before Operation Sunshine . 111 3.4.2 Informal Retail in Gariahat . 115 3.4.3 Partisan Society? . 121 3.5 Hawkers and the State in the 1980s . 124 4 Neoliberalism and Informal Retail 127 4.1 Transformation of a Crisis . 127 4.1.1 Making the India Inc. 130 4.2 Global Dreams and Local Nightmares . 135 viii 4.2.1 Imaging the City . 136 4.2.2 The Reality of Selling . 138 4.2.3 Who Represents Who? . 141 4.3 Changing Tides of the Mid-90s . 145 4.3.1 Turning Right While Signaling Left . 147 4.4 Electoral Ebbs . 151 4.5 Sunshine at Midnight . 154 4.6 Rehabilitating Sunshine . 158 4.6.1 Bringing the Hawkers Back In . 161 4.6.2 An Informal Irony . 163 5 Rights or Rightlessness? 166 5.1 Hawkery in the New Millenium . 166 5.2 Ideational Role of HSC . 170 5.3 Informal Vs. Formal Retail . 178 5.4 Pushback Against Corporate Retail . 184 5.5 Right and Rightlessness . 191 5.6 Conclusion . 195 Bibliography 200 ix List of Tables 2.1 Employment Type by Sector between 2004-2012 . 75 3.1 Employment and Enterprise Distribution over Broad Industries(Percentage) 82 3.2 Non-Agricultural and Informal Employment in millions .