Shillong is a hawker’s paradise and so is every urban Indian city. Hawkers make up an integral part of urban landscapes and people throng their stalls because of the affordable products they have on sale which are often much lesser priced than those inside stores. The reason for the price difference is because the store owner has to pay rent while hawkers pay very little or nothing if they have set up shop without any license from any authority which is the case in Shillong city where hawkers emerge according to season. During the orange season there are hawkers sitting with just two baskets of oranges; in the strawberry season there are seasonal hawkers. There are of course hawkers selling products all year round and those hopefully are licensed by the appropriate authorities. One prime reason for the emergence of hawkers who are in a do or die situation is poverty. Many of them are women. But that does not give then the right to obstruct pedestrian movement and to set up shops on roads and footpaths. The right to livelihoods cannot infringe on the right of other citizens who may be equally poor to walk safely and not be run over by speeding vehicles in a city where roads are already very narrow.
The irony however is that hawkers are located in high-traffic areas, making it easy for workers, shoppers, and travellers to pick up stuff like vegetable and fruits on their way home without having to waste time and effort going to the main marketplaces. The battle between the Government of Meghalaya and the hawkers’ union is a protracted one having gone on for several years. It now resembles a war of attrition depending on who blinks first. The hawkers’ union have the force of law on their side. The central law mandates that if they are evicted from a particular location the alternative location should yield better incomes than the previous one. For a city that is breaking at the seams finding such an alternative vending space is a challenge. Hence the gridlock even while the Government uses strong-arm tactics to remove the legitimate vendors to a different location within city limits not far from the present location and vendors refusing to budge.
The law provides that vendors can only make up 2.5 % of the population of the ward/town/city as the case may be taking into account the holding capacity of the respective locations. In this case the hawkers in Police Bazar can only constitute only 2.5% of the population of that area. Questions being asked by those in support of the hawkers is whether the Government has done due diligence in listing out the number of licensed hawkers and whether those make up 2.5% of the total population of Police Bazar ward/area/locality. At the root of the matter is a clash of ideology between those wanting roads that allow unhindered movement for all, including the disabled, and those who believe that hawkers legitimately occupy public roads and footpaths because the Government has failed to provide a commercially viable vending zone.
