By Angela Rangad
Hawkers and street vendors have been an integral part of any vibrant city. They stand testimony to the ability of a city to support life and livelihoods. And yet, the hawking community has been demonized by the urban elite. Their presence is considered a throwback to an underdeveloped past and thus an impediment to the smart urban future that the elite classes crave. Adjectives like criminals, dirty, shifty, pushy, rude, lawless, scary, space grabbers are used to push the State into a constant cat and mouse game with the hawkers. So who are these hawkers? Where have they come from and why do they do what they do? As someone who has been a part of efforts to organize the hawkers and demand for implementation of already existing laws about hawking, the following stories and insights on hawking give us realistic perspectives of the Shillong we love.
Not nameless and faceless
Evicted roadside vegetable seller T. Marwein tells us that she dropped out in her 3rdyr BA due to financial reasons. She once heard the Chief Minister urging them to stand on their own two feet. She is doing exactly that and yet finds the authorities hounding her and others like her to shut their enterprises down. They are asked to stand on their own two feet only to be rapped on the knees when they do. Not just the government but the “advisers” “think tanks” and the “development brigade” decry that the marginalised and the poor are holding the country back with their ‘freeloading’ dependency culture and subsidy grabbing. When in truth subsidies and tax holidays are extended to the affluent and the rich and influential corner majority of the schemes meant for livelihood enhancement of the poor and marginalised be it the MIDC, KVIC start up loans etc. Even funds meant for the welfare of hawkers have been diverted to create assets for the powerful (hawkers’ shed becomes a bus bay in Tura), as RTI findings have revealed.
Many who grudge the hawkers their rightful pavement and street side space question why hawkers do not sell in shops. People who hawk on the street do so because they do not have enough capital to even hire space. Even subsidized shopping spaces created by the Government such as the MUDA complex were peddled off to stooges of politicians and bureaucrats who in turn are happy to merely be the rentier class and sublet for a handsome sum. Given a chance politicians and bureaucrats will even auction off licenses and street spaces for hawking!
For many hawkers the capital for setting up shop the next day is what is earned the previous day. Their capital belongings often include only the weights and measures as was the case with a fishmongers’ family whose fish, cutting knives and weighing scales were recently looted by authorities in the name of eviction.
A portable ‘duli’ to store their products and where they sell from is one capital investment that hawkers pride themselves in. But these have been targets of the wrath of the eviction crew that stamp and destroy them forcing most hawkers today to resort to using the Andhra fish packaging thermocol boxes – these being not only cheaper but light weight and easy to lift and run when the eviction teams swoop in.
Entrepreneurial Culture of Street Vending
Most hawkers have over the years tried to upscale their businesses. Many begin small by selling ‘waidong’. They save and maybe try fruit and vegetables next and sometimes move into the clothing/shoe business. The sheer hard work and financial management that they display are those that development and livelihood projects vainly peddle through SHGs, microfinance etc. Their saving and investment acumen will be the envy of overpaid development consultants who also use development jargon such as “organic farming” “homestead gardens” “farmers markets” et al. These “experts” will try to co-opt the hawkers when they realize that they practice many of these ideas without much fanfare.
A group of women sellers at Jail Road have for years been bringing ‘tyrso’, ‘muli’, ‘sla salad’ and other seasonal greens that they grow in their gardens in Mawpat. Because of the recent illegal evictions they bring fewer of these goods to the market leaving the ‘tyrso’ in their fields to turn yellow and go to waste. Another vendor at Motphran comes from Mawphu. She vouches that hers are the sweetest oranges that one would ever taste. A pride in her products is similarly shared by a group of women who have for the last forty years sold ‘sohprew’ or loofa at Motphran.
There is a group of women and men from Mawbang who sell mortars, pestles and Khasi knives in the internal walkway near Bijou Cinema. They tell us their village is skilled in making wooden mortars. They also source knives from Mylliem. When asked how it is that so many of them from the same village sell in that spot, they casually say, “ we need to help each other, so when we saw that the sale in this spot was good we encouraged others to come along”.
It is obvious that it is not malls but the hawkers who support our very own local small scale industries like the iron smelting and production units in Mylliem. Even M. Sangma And G Momin travel every alternate day on the night super from Garo Hills bringing with them local forest produce, herbs, green leafy vegetables, fruits, crabs etc that they further supply to the many A.chik sellers at Polo.
Congestion Myth
If there is one common refrain about hawkers, it is congestion. But facts speak otherwise. There are approximately 3000 Hawkers in Shillong, there are 1,60,000 private vehicle licenses in the district. Data says that on an average approximately 50 new vehicles get added to the roads daily. So please direct your angst about congested Shillong to its real cause.
Are public spaces for people not more worthwhile than having cars and bikes parked bumper to bumper taking up all our precious city space? It is the vehicles that have encroached into the spaces where we sell and buy, where we walk and where we rest. The truth is that vendors have not overrun this town. Their carbon footprint is not even the size of a dot compared to what is left behind by the lifestyle of Shillong’s miniscule elites.
At Motphran a historic monument was belittled and cut down to size supposedly to ease congestion. And yet the area continues to be as chaotic as ever. The road opposite Mahari and towards Stand Jeep has been turned into a bike and car parking zone. The vehicles are parked so tightly together that it is impossible for pedestrians to access the footpath! The municipality has contracted out the running of these parking sites. For a 100 meter stretch the boys who collect the parking fees have to hand in about Rs 2000 per day to the contract holder. They get to keep on average Rs.300 per day. In comparison, a hawker selling fruit, vegetables, seasonal products like maize, local foods like ‘pukhlein’ and ‘putharo’ etc make a profit of Rs. 200-300 on a good day. This 100 meter stretch could have supported at least 10 hawkers contributing much more to our economy than lifeless stationary vehicles. The roads have been narrowed not by the hawkers but by encroaching buildings and the parking mafia. Is the easy money and muscle flexing from parking cartels along with the economy of extortion of hawkers the reason behind the resistance to regulate vehicles and spaces in favour of hawkers?
Public Spaces for All
Social media feeds of foreign returned Shillong dwellers are full of their experiences of street shopping and farmers markets. They gloat about these while failing to appreciate our very own indigenous markets. They instagram foreign street foods, but do not acknowledge the makeshift mobile stalls or “standing mess” as they are locally known, as being part of exactly this culture. Many young people set up such hawking food stalls across town. One from Mawlai even trained at the Institute of Hotel Management and says he is determined to start from scratch rather than just work as a waiter in big hotels.
The much-publicized revival of Shillong’s night life was NOT an outcome of CRPF patrols or SOT gypsies or expensive CCTV installations but rather a result of the sense of security that vendors brought to the streets. Early mornings, late evenings and well into the night, food vendors in many parts of the city particularly around Khyndailad serve up everything from roti to rice to chow to tandoori chicken and biryani and feed tired travellers while also providing valuable directions to lost tourists.
Our rich local travellers also revel in selfies with street musicians and buskers in cities like London and New York. But would they be as appreciative of people hawking their talent on our own sidewalks? Do the streets of Shillong have room for musicians and artists? Should we not be creating little nooks and squares in this city where the young can sit for a chat, artists share their art and musicians their song? Should everyone be forced into expensive cafés which in fact replaced the more affordable dairies?
In any society, governance decisions have to be based on facts and law. Hawkers as a group have for long been victims of ignorant/malicious opinions of the local elite and willful flouting of the law by the government. Time has come to call the bluff.