Room for hawkers in Mumbai?

By Rishi Aggarwal

A minister's cavalcade reportedly gets delayed in traffic last month, someone blames it on the city's hawkers, and a brazen policeman is unleashed on the street vendors like a guard dog. In the ensuing crackdown on Mumbai's hawkers, a fruit vendor was killed because of the panic and assault, and news just broke that his 25-year-old daughter has died out of shock.

Mumbai has a long history of conflict with hawkers, but what is happening in the past few years is nothing short of human rights violations as the State "cleans up" the city to make it "world-class." Yes, the hawkers obstruct pedestrian movement, but is that really the concern that has led to the crackdown?

My reading is that creating parking space is the real motive here. Mumbai has seen an exponential growth in cars in the past decade. A poor transport and parking policy has meant a literal clogging of the streets with cars. The poor are being sacrificed to liberate street space in the name of pedestrians; however, the reality is that the spaces will be handed over to motorists for parking. In fact, parking on both sides of the streets and even on footpaths is now emerging as the biggest threat to pedestrians and a cause for traffic congestion — an issue that is being conveniently overlooked by the police.

Buying from street vendors, enjoying some snacks or your favorite tea or coffee with friends on the streets is something which every citizen of Mumbai engages in, not necessarily due to lack of choice but also out of love for doing it this way. Imagine streets without hawkers or any lively street activity. Compare a Bandra Kurla Complex and the Fort Fountain area; which is more lively and pleasant to be in? Bandra Kurla Complex — the city's corporate part that edges up against Dharavi — might have billions of dollars flowing within its buildings, but the "clean" streets represent a ghost town — you don’t want to spend time on them. On the other hand, the Fountain area, which integrates hawkers, shops and walking areas, is a place that most Mumbaikers and tourists enjoy. Hawkers bring life and vitality to Indian streets, which is what also makes it a great tourist attraction for millions in the West whose streets have been sanitized long ago.

In planning our cities and streets, this is something which should have been incorporated and should be going forward if it has been neglected until now.

What causes conflict is that hawkers will necessarily come to places which have high footfalls, which can be on arterial roads, outside mass transit stations and the like. There is a certain invisible economic logic which makes hawkers congregate in certain locations. This is where the urban planners have to step in, closely observe human interactions and mobility, and be able to innovatively create new hawking spaces in the same street architecture as before. It goes without saying that a large amount of urbanization which is yet to happen in India has to be clearly driven by accommodating hawking spaces in the street networks.

When I started the Walking Project last year with a few friends of mine, I was very clear to not include the hawkers issue in the first few years of the decade-long project. It is not a simple issue of carrying out encroachment raids; it is a deeper urban planning issue which can be solved through adequate space allocation for hawking in the Development Plan and through the Urban Street Vendors Policy. Delhi has made a beginning with its street design guidelines and I believe Mumbai needs to focus on one soon as well.

Rishi Aggarwal is a research fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a public policy think tank in Mumbai.