Abstract
There is a consensus that urban development schemes in India bear little resemblance to the well-thought-out plans of their genesis, and that the boundary between formal/informal is often blurry. I seek to contribute to this literature by showing how, in spite of efforts to implement a regulatory scheme, street hawking in Delhi remains highly informal and in a state of negotiated (im)permanence. I compare two recent conflicts over street hawkers’ use of public space, which demonstrate that power is dispersed across a range of sites and rests with a number of state and non-state actors. I argue that preconceived notions of ‘formality’ and ‘informality’ are of little value in understanding urban processes, and instead it is necessary to understand how the boundary between formal/informal is produced and contested both juridically and through everyday practices of enforcement and evasion/subversion.
Keywords
Introduction
Conflict over access to urban space in Delhi is common, as municipal authorities seek to impose – sometimes violently – a ‘world-class’ city vision (Bhan, 2009; Dupont, 2011; Padhi, 2007; Rammanathan, 1996; Rao, 2010). The preferred citizen-subject of the world-class city is the post-industrial office worker whose cultural capital allows her to practice a cosmopolitan lifestyle (Deshpande, 2003; Fernandes, 2006). There is little space in this vision – literally or figuratively – for Delhi’s poor, who are discursively portrayed as a nuisance and/or threat to middle-class citizens (see Ghertner, 2011a). This constitutes a shift in the way the urban poor are ‘represented, governed and judged’, when compared with India’s post-independence period (Bhan, 2009: 131; see Chatterjee, 2011; Gidwani and Reddy, 2011). Rather than a momentous reversal in the logic of governance, however, this shift has unfolded unevenly across urban India, affecting people, places and spheres of life with varying degrees of intensity.
Unlike conflicts over slum demolitions in which the poor are commonly victimised by multiple state agencies, street hawkers’ claims to urban space were balanced with the needs of the wider public in a series of judicial rulings between 1985 and 2011. Municipal authorities sought to remain in control of urban space in practice, however, by enforcing these rulings in ways that prevented hawkers from obtaining a tehbazari permit in order to operate legally. 1 Street hawkers were recognised by the judiciary as legitimate users of public space, while municipal authorities frequently raided areas where street hawkers operated. These divergent regulatory practices cohered into a rather ad hoc and incomprehensible regime in which the boundary between formal and informal was blurred. This demonstrates that although ‘the state’ theoretically enjoys a monopoly over distinguishing formal from informal, in reality the state is a fractured entity composed of competing interest groups. It is in this context that a shift in the regulation of street hawking has recently taken place; in 2011 a Delhi High Court ruling empowered municipal authorities to dispense with consultative processes that encouraged the participation of street hawkers, and unilaterally evict hawkers from public space. The order proclaimed that if the government were not empowered to evict hawkers ‘it will choke the streets leaving hardly any space for pedestrian or vehicular movement. Such a state of affairs cannot be permitted’ (Municipal Corporation of Delhi (NDMC) v. Usha Gangaria, 2011). 2 This ruling represents the emergence of a bourgeoning consensus among the judiciary and municipal authorities regarding top-down regulation of street hawking.
The top-down regulation of street hawking has been contested, and I focus on two flashpoints of conflict where municipal authorities recently intensified efforts to evict street hawkers from places where they have historically operated. In each case hawkers resisted these efforts, and their claims were supported by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In one instance the NGO pursued a conciliatory strategy and sought to resolve the conflict through negotiations, while in the second case the NGO adopted a confrontational posture against the municipal government. In each case the state and non-state actors involved in ongoing negotiations and struggles – i.e. municipal officials, judges, hawkers, NGO representatives, shopkeepers, unions, local gangs – expressed a desire for formal regulations. Rather than an objective regulatory regime or an agreed-upon vision of urban space, however, all of these actors understood ‘formal’ as an augmentation of their control over, or access to, urban space. This shows that the designations ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ are not ontologically given categories. Instead, the boundary between them is produced in the course of struggles and negotiations among differentially empowered actors who employ juridical means (e.g. court orders, zoning laws, lawsuits) as well as everyday practices of enforcement and subversion of land-use regulations. Furthermore, these interactions occur in many locations (e.g. courtrooms, municipal government offices, sidewalks and markets). Thus, power is dispersed across a range of sites, and rests in varying degrees with a host of state and non-state actors, none of whom are able to unilaterally impose their preferred vision of formality. Instead, these interest groups negotiate and struggle to define (in)formality and gain control over, or access to, urban space. As a result, street hawking remains in a state of negotiated (im)permanence, in the sense that hawkers work in particular places on an impermanent basis because they can suddenly lose access to space. However, hawking in general is permanently subject to (re)negotiation and cannot be subsumed by a single, top-down or bottom-up regulatory regime. The stakes of these negotiations are high for individual hawkers, and by fixing or blurring the boundary between formal and informal some spaces and behaviours are legitimised while others are rendered illicit and in need of correction.
The empirical section is based on 10 months of fieldwork in Delhi in 2011 and two follow-up visits in 2012, in which I conducted focus-group discussions and over 70 interviews with hawkers, as well as representatives of NGOs, officials, lawyers and a judge, and spent a significant amount of time in markets observing everyday life.
Urban informality in 21st century metropolises
Urban studies has historically universalised the EuroAmerican urban experience by portraying ‘global’ and ‘world’ cities in the global North as modern, which serve as reference points for Southern cities in need of development (Robinson, 2002, 2004). Robinson (2011: 3) argues that this ‘implicit comparativism’ reifies a bias that locates city-ness in the global North, and therefore scholars should ‘diversify the starting points for developing our understandings of contemporary cities’ (Parnell and Robinson, 2012: 595). According to Ananya Roy it is not only necessary to produce urban theory in the global South because Southern metropolises have hitherto remained ‘off the map’ (Robinson, 2002), but because Northern-centric theory cannot sufficiently inform our understanding of urbanity in Delhi, Lagos, Jakarta and a host of cities that Roy (2009a; see Simone, 2009) refers to collectively as 21st century metropolises.
Urbanization in many 21st century metropolises is not sanctioned by local planners and can be described as ‘urban informality’, which Roy (2009b: 80) defines as ‘a state of deregulation, one where the ownership, use, and purpose of land cannot be fixed and mapped according to any prescribed set of regulations or the law’. While the term ‘informality’ often refers to economic activity beyond the purview of the state, this paper embraces Roy’s definition and focuses on land use that contravenes the laws regulating how and by whom it is used. Theorising urban informality has proved challenging because a significant amount of space exists in the interstice between formal/informal. A settlement could be recognised by one agency and not another, or it could suddenly be formally recognised by the state for political reasons (see De Soto, 1998). Second, informality cannot be attributed to a single interest group, because empirical examples abound in which it has been fostered by municipal governments, elites and the poor. For example, some scholars have demonstrated how the state imposes informal regimes of urban development by adjusting an ever-shifting boundary between formal and informal in order to maintain agency and determine land use (Goldman, 2010; Randeria, 2007; Roy, 2003, 2005, 2009b). This interpretation appears valid in parts of Delhi where municipal officials tolerate unorganised colonies (Zimmer, 2012), and enforcement of the Master Plan is particularly lax in posh areas as ‘developments that have the “world-class” look … are granted amnesty and heralded as monuments of modernity’ (Ghertner, 2008: 66, 2011b). 3 In contrast, a number of scholars describe informality ‘from below’ and demonstrate how marginalised populations secure access to urban space through everyday resistance and encroachment (Benjamin, 2008; Chatterjee, 2004, 2011; Sanyal and Bhattacharya, 2009). The Indian news media concurs with this version, and routinely attributes widespread informality to the incorrigibility of the urban poor. In a representative example the Times of India (Akram, 2012) recently lamented the transgressions of the poor in an article entitled ‘Encroachment by hawkers, a menace in Delhi’. These two views are not mutually exclusive – court orders can be subverted by municipal authorities who prefer the flexibility of extra-legal regimes of urban informality while the poor and elites can simultaneously appropriate space. Taken together they point to the need for theory that moves beyond top-down and bottom-up explanations of informality, and they raise an important question: under what circumstances do particular interest groups decide whether to support or subvert formal land-use regimes? This question is obfuscated by an essentialised notion of informality that equates it with the ‘unruly’ space of the urban poor, but as the authors I have cited above demonstrate, this fails to account for the diversity of spaces in violation of land-use laws. Furthermore, this question forces us to interrogate how the concept of ‘formality’ is constructed, beyond simply being the opposite of ‘informality’.
In spite of the difficulty of theorising urban informality, the concept remains valuable given the proliferation of space that is legally – and visibly (see Ghertner, 2008, 2011c) – in violation of master plans and zoning laws. The rapid growth of slums in 21st century metropolises is, according to Dovey (2012: 349), ‘the most pervasive single form of new urban development over the past half century, housing around a quarter of the global urban population’. Roy (2011: 224) has urged scholars to theorise this subaltern urbanism, which ‘provides accounts of the slum as a terrain of habitation, livelihood and politics’ in order to ‘confer recognition on spaces of poverty and forms of popular agency that often remain invisible and neglected in the archives and annals of urban theory’. According to Watson (2009) this subaltern urban space stands in stark contrast to the visions of urban planners who draw on the canon of EuroAmerican urban planning. In both of these narratives (Roy, 2011; Watson, 2009) urban informality is at least partly a manifestation of a clash of worldviews. However, in drawing attention to urban space that has remained ‘off the map’ they also implicitly evoke a dual-city metaphor, as the efforts of municipal authorities and planners in 21st century metropolises who seek to reproduce Northern policy and planning run aground owing to a sizeable subaltern population with competing agendas.
Rather than viewing 21st century metropolises as terrains of struggle upon which ‘global North thinking’ confronts ‘global South thinking’, this paper demonstrates the need for a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms that produce urban informality. I argue that we should resist lending normative content to the concept of ‘urban informality’, given the plurality of spaces that it can describe and the range of actors that occasionally seek to produce it. Instead, it is important to understand the processes that confer formal or informal status on particular spaces or land uses, because this boundary conditions the actions of state and non-state actors (i.e. the construction of an urban megaproject, demolition of a slum or occupation of public space). By focusing on the regulation of street hawking in Delhi, I seek to broaden the focus of scholarship on urban informality to include the struggle of marginalised groups to secure workspace. The regulation of public space is highly fluid – the poor can use some spaces one day and not the next – and prohibiting hawkers from using public space for work is less visible and dramatic than the demolition of a slum. A significant amount of scholarship has examined issues of housing and slum demolitions in Delhi (Bhan, 2009; Ghertner, 2008, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Padhi, 2007; Rammanathan, 1996; Rao, 2010), and while access to shelter is unquestionably of paramount importance, it is equally necessary for the poor to secure workspace if they are to remain in the city. In his research on street hawkers in Mumbai, Anjaria (2011: 58) documents engagements between hawkers and officials and he argues that the state ‘is experienced less an extension of disciplinary power than as a locus for the negotiation and legitimation of spatial claims’. He asserts (Anjaria, 2011: 64) that the state is ‘differentiated institution operating according to multiple rationalities’, and his recognition of relations between hawkers and municipal authorities as fluid and fraught with contingency is a significant contribution to our understanding of urban informality. It remains unclear, however, how these competing rationalities are ultimately reconciled.
One way forward is to recognise multiplicities of the state and the poor. If we unpack the notion of ‘the state’ it is clear that government officials frequently work at cross-purposes and have competing objectives. It is equally important not to essentialise the poor as a homogenous entity – some impoverished city dwellers subvert urban planning while others eschew urban informality. Slum dwellers commonly employ a range of time-/place-specific strategies in their attempts to secure housing, including ‘formal’ (e.g. applying for a flat in a slum rehabilitation/relocation scheme) and ‘informal’ (e.g. squatting) (see Anand and Rademacher, 2011; Chatterjee, 2004; Rao, 2010). A focus on the diversity of tactics and desires displayed by the poor as well as actors within the state show that there is not a universal preference for formal or informal land-use regulations – strict regulations can occasionally safeguard the poor from dispossession, while at other times the poor are able to mitigate their insecurity by gaining access to space in the absence of regulations or their enforcement. Thus, instead of either celebrating informal space or lamenting its existence, there is a need to better understand how the boundary between formal and informal is produced and contested, and how the classification of space and land use as formal or informal is ultimately reflected in material outcomes.
Street hawking in Delhi
The Indian retail sector is more than 90% informal (Joseph et al., 2008) and it is the main employer in India after agriculture (Guruswamy et al., 2005). It provides an important source of livelihood to retrenched labourers whose formal-sector wage-labour positions have become informalised as a result of India’s economic reforms launched in 1991 (Bhowmik, 2001; Sanyal and Bhattacharya, 2009). In most Indian cities the relationship between street hawkers and authorities is antagonistic, as authorities struggle to regulate public space while hawkers work informally and struggle to maintain access to workspace (Anjaria, 2006, 2011; Bandyopadhyay, 2011; Bhattacharya and Sanyal, 2011; Bhowmik, 2001; Rajagopal, 2001; te Lintelo, 2009a). Hawkers are particularly vulnerable to municipal authorities’ efforts to ‘clean-up’ the city because they must work in the very places that are meant to showcase the city, such as central commercial areas and middle-class neighbourhoods.
Laws regulating street vending in India date back to the colonial period (Mukhopadhyay, 2004), and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Act, 1957 (sec. 322) that incorporated the municipality empowered authorities to seize ‘any article whatsoever hawked or exposed for sale on any public street or in any public place’. The power to evict hawkers was limited by the Supreme Court in 1985, however, in a case brought by pavement dwellers who were forcibly evicted from public space by the Bombay Municipal Corporation. Many of those evicted were street hawkers, and the Court ruled that ‘if they are evicted from their slum and pavement dwellings, their eviction is tantamount to deprivation of their life and is hence unconstitutional’ (Olga Tellis v BMC 1985: 79). The ‘right to life’ is guaranteed by the Indian Constitution, and in considering whether it extends to livelihood, the Court ruled unambiguously: ‘We see only one answer to that question, namely, that it does’ (Olga Tellis v BMC 1985: 79). Thus, the court ruled that eviction from public space constitutes a violation of the right to life if it would result in a loss of livelihood. This case was followed by a high-profile Supreme Court ruling in 1989, when a hawker alleged that municipal authorities in New Delhi had violated his right to life when they prevented him from working in an area where he had been licensed to work for years. The court issued a balanced decision: If hawkers were to be conceded the right claimed by them, they could hold the society to ransom by squatting on the busy thoroughfares, thereby paralyzing all civic life. This is one side of the picture. On the other hand, if properly regulated according to the exigency of the circumstances, the small traders on the said walks can considerably add to the comfort and convenience of general public, by making available ordinary articles of every day use for a comparably lesser price. (Sodhan Singh v NDMC, 1989: 1051–1052)
These decisions balanced street hawkers’ livelihoods with the interests of the public (e.g. clear roadsides and sidewalks). Since the rulings prohibited municipal authorities from implementing blanket bans on street hawking, 4 municipal governments began devising restrictions that amounted to de facto bans. Delhi’s original Master Plan was silent on the issue of licensing hawkers, but the second Master Plan published in 1990 notes the ubiquitous presence of hawkers. It states (Delhi Development Authority (DDA), 2006[1990]: 20) that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) charges hawkers ‘a certain fee termed as the-bazari for continued use particular space’ but that ‘a large number of units [i.e. hawkers] are either mobile or not covered under the the-bazari’. However, the plan recognises that hawkers have the potential to ‘add to the city scape and would be bringing in a lot of richness and experience of the city in a developing country’ (DDA, 2006[1990]: 20). The section on hawking in the most recent Master Plan published in 2010 does not recognise hawkers’ contribution to the production of a lively cityscape. Furthermore, there is no mention of licensing hawkers, and while the plan calls for hawking zones to be identified by resident welfare associations and local authorities, the municipality is meant to regulate hawkers on a case-by-case basis (DDA, 2009: 34): ‘the location/concentration of present stationary informal units shall be considered on a case to case basis’. The individualised regulation of street hawking often conflicted with earlier court orders, such as the court’s prohibition of the removal of hawkers whose livelihoods depended upon their access to space. As a result, the restrictive ad hoc regime that emerged became the subject of extensive legal wrangling between municipal authorities who sought to exercise their mandate to prevent encroachment and hawkers who claimed that their use of space was protected by the Indian Constitution. The Supreme Court ordered Delhi authorities to create comprehensive regulations in 1989, and they were advised to ‘consider the suggestions of the petitioners [street hawkers] while finalizing the schemes’ (Sodhan Singh v. NDMC, 1989: 1057).
Developing a regulatory regime
Delhi is divided into several municipal bodies, and for the purpose of this paper I deal with two: the MCD which is by far the largest, and the NDMC which encompasses a much smaller affluent and centrally located area. Committees were established in both MCD and NDMC to identify hawking zones and license hawkers (see te Lintelo, 2009b), but municipal authorities went to great lengths to disobey this order and avoid licensing hawkers. While many street hawkers qualified under the scheme only a small number of licenses were issued (see Gainda Ram v. MCD, 2010). In 2004 the Government of India unveiled the National Urban Street Vendors Policy, which was non-binding but recommended that municipal governments provide space for street hawkers (te Lintelo, 2009b). In turn, the Supreme Court ruled that ‘since a National Policy on Urban Street Vendors has been formulated, the authorities concerned will have due regard to the said policy in the implementation of the schemes regulating tehbazari/vending sites’ (Sudhir Madan v. MCD, 2007: 31). Both municipalities introduced regulatory schemes which included provisions to license eligible hawkers and identify space where they could operate, but given the subjective nature of locating a suitable site for street hawking it was relatively easy for municipal authorities to remain in non-compliance of court orders. As one judge made clear, the designation of ‘hawking zones’ is highly context-specific and provides officials with ample leeway to impose ad hoc regulations: What will constitute public nuisance and what can be included in the legitimate use [of space] can be ascertained only by taking into account all the relevant circumstances including the size of the road, the amount of traffic and the nature of the additional use one wants to make of the public streets. This has to be judged objectively and here comes the role of public authorities. (Sodhan Singh v. NDMC, 1989: 2)
Thus, municipal authorities sought to satisfy the basic requirements of Supreme Court rulings, while operating with a competing logic based on not recognising street hawkers as legitimate users of public space whenever possible. This was done by portraying street hawkers as a population group outside, and in opposition to, the ‘public’ which is comprised of ‘citizens’. The NDMC (2006) scheme makes this distinction very clearly: The hawkers are large in number, but the population of citizens is many times more than that of hawkers and, therefore, the fundamental rights of the citizens cannot be put in jeopardy by permitting hawkers and squatters to block roads, footpaths, public parks, etc.… Consistent with the rights of citizens, if it is possible to provide any space to hawkers, squatters etc., that may be done consistent with the policy to be framed by the concerned Authority.
The failure of municipal authorities to identify space for hawking and issue licenses to eligible hawkers precipitated constant legal wrangling, and by 2010 Supreme Court justices grew weary of adjudicating on a case-by-case basis. One Justice noted that it ‘is difficult for this Court to tackle this huge problem in the absence of a valid law. The nature of the problem defies a proper solution by this Court’ (Gainda Ram v. MCD, 2010: 67). Delhi authorities were given until 30 June 2011 to implement comprehensive regulations for street hawking. Zonal Vending Committees (ZVC) had been established to ‘verify the vending sites and hawking zones’, and ‘to scrutinize application for allotment of the sites’ (Gainda Ram v. MCD, 2010: 33). Each ZVC was meant to include a diverse range of stakeholders, including municipal authorities, traffic and local police, land-owning authorities (i.e. representatives from land-owning public bodies such as the Delhi Development Authority), representatives from associations of local residents and businesses, and representatives of street hawker associations (NDMC, 2006).
Judicial shift: From balanced to anti-hawker rulings
India’s judiciary was traditionally removed from the messiness of political squabbles and corruption, and it inspired trust as a site of fairness where even the poor could be heard. Gautam Bhan (2009: 133) identifies a number of judgements in the 1970s and 1980s that ‘cemented the court’s positioning of itself as a site for justice for the poor and marginalized’. He traces the reversal of the judiciary’s pro-poor stance in relation to squatting, and shows that beginning in 2000 the judiciary’s ‘tone change, both suddenly and dramatically’ and ‘the very citizenship of the urban poor began to be called into question’ (Bhan, 2009: 135). However, rather than an event, this judicial shift was a process that unfolded unevenly. As was shown in the previous section, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling (see above) recognised the municipal government’s authority to determine land use, but it simultaneously curtailed this authority by mandating that ZVCs implement hawking regulations through a consultative process that included street hawkers.
The inclusive spirit in which the ZVCs were meant to operate was easily subverted by municipal authorities. Given the subjective nature of the criteria for locating space, it was easy for hostile committee members to raise objections to any proposal. Some committee members argued, for example, that hawkers should not be allowed in central areas of the city because they ‘are affecting the unique structure of Connaught Place and recent development in the area’, and that they cause congestion on main roads and pose a security threat (Minto Road ZVC, 2009). One member of the committee complained publicly about ‘the non-cooperation of NDMC, Police and the Members of Vending Committee during the survey for identification of sites’ (personal communication, July 2011). Another participant reported that committee members sought to disqualify space from being allocated to street hawkers by offering excuses that it failed to meet certain criteria – the road was too narrow, hawkers posed a security risk, etc. – and he claimed he was offered bribes to agree with their assessments (personal communication, July 2011).
Obstructionist members of the ZVCs were able to stall the process of identifying space for street hawking, and the legal status of the ZVCs became ambiguous after the expiration of their mandate on 30 June 2011. Finally, in December 2011 the ZVCs were decommissioned when a Delhi High Court judge ruled that they are ‘merely administrative and/or recommendatory bodies’ that cannot issue orders to municipal bodies (NDMC v. Usha Gangaria, 2011). Furthermore, the judgement delegitimised the ZVCs on the grounds that ‘both NDMC and the representatives of hawkers/squatters/vendors are members of the Vending Committee. A Committee of adversaries cannot be said to be having adjudicatory powers’. The ruling concluded that if the municipal authorities were not empowered to evict hawkers unilaterally ‘it will choke the streets leaving hardly any space for pedestrian or vehicular movement. Such a state of affairs cannot be permitted’ (NDMC v. Usha Gangaria, 2011).
This decision represents a departure from earlier rulings that sought to balance street hawkers’ access to urban space – and their ‘right to life’ – with the needs of the wider public. It is consistent with the judicial shift identified by Bhan (2009), because it prioritises the top-down imposition of order at the expense of the wellbeing of the urban poor. Furthermore, by excluding representatives of street hawkers from policy making processes, this judgement implicitly endorses the NDMC’s differentiation of hawkers and citizens. Thus, this judgement signals the emergence of a consensus between the Delhi High Court and municipal authorities. At present the implications of this consensus remain unclear for a number of reasons. First, tensions remain among various government officials and agencies. For example, lawyers who represent street hawkers insist that the appellate court for squatters/vendors continues to issue balanced rulings (personal communication, July 2012). Decisions delivered in this court carry less weight than High Court rulings, however, and a presiding judge explained that he is fully aware that local authorities regularly ignore his rulings (personal communication, June 2012). Second, the Supreme Court could – at least in theory – overturn the High Court decision in the future and reaffirm the bond between hawkers’ use of space and their right to life. Furthermore, in many ways this ruling simply legitimises municipal authorities’ existing enforcement practices. For example, prior to the ruling te Lintelo (2009) documented that municipal authorities commonly raided areas where street hawkers were known to operate. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, in spite of the judicial shift municipal authorities have been unable to fiat the formal use of space in practice, and the boundary between formal/informal remains contested by numerous non-state actors.
Conflict over urban workspace
In this section I present empirical data and compare two conflicts that erupted as municipal authorities sought to evict hawkers from places where they have historically operated. In both cases hawkers sought to secure space with the support of NGOs, but in one instance the NGO pursued a collaborative approach and negotiated with municipal authorities while in the second case the NGO opted for a confrontational strategy and challenged authorities in court. In both instances they successfully averted mass evictions of street hawkers, but failed to secure long-term security for them. Furthermore, both cases illustrate the extent to which street hawking is regulated by a range of state and non-state actors.
Kabari Bazaar
Kabari Bazaar is Delhi’s largest weekly market with approximately 1200 hawkers, and on Sundays in Old Delhi it attracts throngs of budget-minded consumers (DDA, 2006[1990]: 20–21). According to the former Commissioner (Planning) at the Delhi Development Authority, Old Delhi is ‘increasingly becoming congested with trade and commerce’ and as a result it ‘is losing its charm and charisma, getting degenerated and its rich heritage is dying’ (Jain, 2004: 29). The municipality’s campaign to eradicate this market can be seen as part of a larger effort to transform the area into a ‘tourist-/people-friendly zone’ (Jain, 2004: 35). The market is located in an open space between the Jama Masjid and the Red Fort that was reserved for ‘conservation’ in the 1990 Master Plan (DDA, 2006[1990]: 110). Since 1986 it has been the subject of extensive legal wrangling, and as a result it has been relocated numerous times. First it was relocated to an area behind the Red Fort, where it existed until 2001 when authorities ordered it to cease without providing an alternative site. Hawkers again returned to their original location between the Red Fort and Jama Masjid until 2004 when they were allotted space approximately 4 km away (on Velodrome Road). Construction of a flyover began at that site in 2009 in preparation for the Commonwealth Games, and again authorities closed the market without warning or providing an alternative site. The MCD justified the closure of the market in court by arguing that the flyover was in the ‘public interest’, and ‘due to the paucity of space, the proposal for relocating the Sunday Bazar seems unviable’ (Old Edward Park v. K.S. Mehra, 2010). Finally the authorities offered to relocate the market to a former crematorium, to which the hawkers raised objections, according to them, because of ‘religious feelings no body [sic] want to buy articles from a cremation ground’ (Old Edward Park v. K.S. Mehra, 2010). Thus, the hawkers returned to their original location between the Red Fort and Jama Masjid once again, where, to the consternation of authorities, they have remained in legal limbo ever since.
The market is highly regulated by non-state actors, and this demonstrates the extent to which power is dispersed; hawkers are ostensibly represented by six different unions, while they pay rent to a local gang that has taken control of the space. While the unions have won some reprieve for the hawkers through efforts in court, it is also fair to say that they are entrepreneurial in nature. Hawkers are forced into a relationship of dependence because in addition to collecting dues, these unions retain hawkers’ membership cards. While the union leadership may secure space for their members by negotiating with municipal authorities or the local gang that controls the market, it extracts a hefty fee from hawkers in return. According to the director of one NGO, once these unions secure access to space ‘they take the place and they give the place to whomsoever they want to give, you know? … So they take the place for 25 people and they allow 50 people to sit’ (personal communication, October 2011). These unions are quick to level allegations of corruption against one another, as the comments of one of their directors demonstrate: ‘I am different from all the other five organisations, I am the most unique one. I am the most truthful one; I am not scared by anyone and I don’t listen to anybody. Others all are dacoits [thieves]’ (personal communication, April 2011).
The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is an internationally recognised NGO 5 founded in 1972 and headquartered in Ahmadabad. Employees at its Delhi office became aware of the challenges faced by Kabari Bazaar’s hawkers through their outreach efforts in a different market, where many of the hawkers operate during the week. SEWA helped the hawkers form a committee and elect leaders, who later took part in negotiations with municipal officials. In February 2011 an agreement was reached with the MCD whereby the market would be relocated and managed by SEWA. Contacts with influential policy makers facilitated the process; according to the Delhi Director of SEWA high-level support was necessary because permission for such an undertaking requires the approval of multiple agencies and officials, such as the Public Works Department, traffic police, etc. (personal communication, October 2011). Thus, mistrust and animosity between hawkers and authorities (and among authorities) was initially overcome through the mediation of SEWA. The market stalls have been marked and numbered at the new site, yet over a year later, the relocation effort has stalled. Approximately 200 hawkers gathered at the new site in early 2012, but by July their number had dwindled to less than 20.
There are two reasons for this outcome. First, the entrepreneurial unions filed a legal complaint alleging that space was not allocated to their members, and the MCD will not issue tehbazari permits at the new site until the matter is settled in court. There is ample space (1200 allotments) at the proposed location for all of the hawkers, so it appears that these unions are resisting the relocation because they would become redundant. If SEWA manages the issuing of tehbazari permits and ensures that only licensed hawkers work in the market there would be no need for entrepreneurial middlemen between the state and hawkers. Second, the original location continues to draw customers. The hawkers I interviewed in the current location almost unanimously preferred the new location because it is under a flyover, which offers protection from the elements, and they presume that there will be an absence of rent-seeking gangs or authorities. One hawker explained ‘if we get place in Powerhouse [the new location] we would have money for food. We just want space in Powerhouse. Then we’ll comfortably be able to provide for our stomachs. That is the best place’ (personal communication, May 2011).
Many hawkers fear that the local gang in control of the market would not allow them to return should the new market fail to draw customers, and therefore they consider relocating too risky. Indeed, the hawkers at the new location were adamant that authorities should forcibly relocate the hawkers who have remained at the original location. Throughout this ordeal municipal authorities remained more or less ambivalent to the initiative, and antagonism has involved non-state groups; conflict between SEWA and entrepreneurial unions has unfolded in court, while low-intensity contention between hawkers and the gang that charges rent at the original site became routine once the market’s relocation seemed imminent. The municipal government’s ambivalence can perhaps be explained by the fact that even if hawkers were mobilised and relocated to the new location, it is likely that other hawkers would occupy the original site. When asked what would become of the bazaar if the hawkers were relocated, one hawker who was optimistic about the new location explained that ‘even if we go away from here there will be more people to replace us’ (personal communication, June 2011). Thus, from the perspective of planners whose objective is to reduce encroachment on public space, the initiative is unlikely to succeed.
Sarojini Nagar
Sarojini Nagar is zoned as a market in the jurisdiction of NDMC, and it is well-planned and centrally located. It has long been a flashpoint of conflict between shop owners and hawkers. Its shops offer a wide range of consumer goods, and shop owners have formed a politically active traders’ association. Hawkers operate throughout the market; some display their wares on blankets laid on the ground opposite shops, while others are mobile and constantly roam throughout the market. The shopkeepers have accused the hawkers of congesting pavements and blocking pedestrian traffic, while the hawkers insist that they should be allowed to operate since it is indeed a commercial area. When the NDMC submitted its scheme for licensing street hawkers in 1989 (with revisions in 2006
6
), the Thareja Committee was formed to identify eligible hawkers and suitable space for hawking. It was a forerunner of ZVCs, and it proved controversial because it only recognised hawkers who could prove they were active throughout the previous decade: A squatter up to 1977 shall be eligible for the allotment of a stall/kiosk while the squatters pertaining to the years 1978 till 1980 shall be eligible for Tehbazari site, if no shop/kiosk is available. The squatters squatting since between 1981 to 1987 shall be considered for allotment for a Tehbazari site subject to availability of vacant space. (Cited in Gainda Ram v. MCD, 2010: 20)
In spite of these stringent requirements approximately 5000 applications were pending by 1991 (Gainda Ram v. MCD, 2010); to date 3878 eligible hawkers have been identified yet they have not been allotted space or issued tehbazari licenses. These hawkers have an ambiguous legal status; on the one hand municipal authorities recognise their claims with a degree of legitimacy, while on the other hand they are denied the right to operate because of the supposed paucity of suitable space.
This legal ambiguity resulted in constant legal manoeuvring, and frequent market raids which became a daily occurrence over certain periods in 2011. The National Association of Street Vendors in India (NASVI) took an interest in the matter, and contended that the authorities’ refusal to allot significant space in the market to hawkers represented a violation of various Supreme Court orders. A lawyer working for NASVI explained that hawkers had previously paid exorbitant fees for legal representation, and given the lengthy nature of legal proceedings they were commonly unable to avail of legal services for the duration of proceedings (personal communication, July 2012). Throughout 2011 NASVI offered pro bono legal services to hawkers in Sarojini Nagar, while NASVI staff members documented instances in which NDMC authorities acted in violation of court orders. Second, NASVI sought to quantify the amount of space within the market which was being used by hawkers in order to counter shopkeepers’ claims that hawkers were causing excess congestion within the market.
As a result of NASVI’s efforts the Supreme Court ordered the NDMC to implement its own scheme to license hawkers. While there was no shortage of eligible hawkers, the challenge faced by the NDMC was to locate space for them to operate, and ultimately 112 hawkers were licensed to work in Sarojini Nagar. When the NDMC announced that these 112 licenses would be issued, members of Sarojini Nagar’s market traders’ association (MTA) shuttered their shops in protest (The Hindu, 2012a). Representatives of the MTA met with Delhi’s Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, and requested a written guarantee that the decision to license hawkers would be rescinded. Since writing such an order would have effectively been a declaration of disregard for previous Supreme Court orders, Dikshit allegedly told the traders that she would issue ‘instructions to the NDMC to follow the norms agreed under the Master Plan for Delhi − 2021’ (The Hindu, 2012b). This statement can be interpreted as support for the status quo, since the Master Plan allows for local authorities to identify space for hawkers in consultation with resident welfare associations and MTAs. When asked about the protest, one shopkeeper dismissed it as ‘an internal problem, because of the hawker problem’ (personal communication, July 2012). He complained that both NASVI’s support of hawkers and the NDMC’s licensing scheme represented illegitimate interference in the MTA’s regulation of the market.
Meanwhile, the Director of NASVI argued that all 3878 hawkers who had been identified by NDMC should ‘be rehabilitated within the markets under the NDMC area’ (Times of India, 2012). Complicating the matter is that rows of semi-permanent stalls have recently been erected opposite storefronts. When I approached the hawkers manning these stalls to ask them about the recent developments in the market, my questions were met with shrugs and indifference. Finally one hawker explained that he had no direct knowledge of how the market is regulated because he was employed by a local shopkeeper (personal communication, June 2012). Thus, shopkeepers seem to have reached an informal agreement with NDMC officials for the use of this space.
Shopkeepers’ seizure of public space and the apparent collusion of officials amounts to the quasi privatization of public space, but their control over the market is threatened by the persistent encroachment of hawkers and NASVI’s ongoing efforts in court. One hawker who had recently received a license to work in the market after years of bureaucratic obstinacy was incredulous: ‘NDMC says there is no space, but they give space to shopkeepers!’ (personal communication, June 2012). From the perspective of the NDMC, NASVI’s challenge is an affront to its exclusive authority to determine land use, while the regularisation of 112 hawkers is indeed a minor success. Finally, for the majority of hawkers who were not awarded licenses, little has changed; they continue to work without licenses and try to evade municipal authorities during raids only to return as soon as authorities are out of sight.
Negotiating informality in Delhi
The two case studies presented demonstrate that the regulation of street hawking in Delhi takes place across a range of sites, including courtrooms, offices of the municipal government and NGOs, on sidewalks and in markets. Power is dispersed across this landscape, and at each of these sites competing visions of urban development must be reconciled among a number of state and non-state actors. The struggles and negotiations among these actors serve to establish the boundary between formal/informal. However, this boundary is never permanently fixed, and it is perpetually contested.
All of the actors involved expressed frustration with the limits of their influence. A planner at the Delhi Development Authority complained that governmental agencies fail to enforce the master plan: ‘the [master] plan itself is very good provided you follow it … [but other agencies] have their own priorities, there is always a gap [in enforcement]’ (personal communication, September 2011). Meanwhile, representatives of NGOs interpreted the competing pressures within government as bureaucratic obstinacy. One explained that ‘Delhi unfortunately is a very competitive place … There are so many different agencies, and when it comes to exercising power they all claim this is their domain. When it comes to answering questions this is not [their domain]’ [personal communication, September 2011]. Similarly, the director of another NGO summed up the situation as such: Delhi is too messed up, in terms of urban governance … in Delhi [power to regulate markets] is in nobody’s hands actually. Everybody has a nuisance value nobody has a positive value. Nobody can by himself or herself, even if, let’s say, the mayor wanted to do it, can the mayor do it by himself? No. Let’s say the Commissioner wants to do it, can he do it by himself? No. The Chief Minister wanted to do it, can she do it by herself? No. But they can all make life miserable and wretched. (Personal communication, October 2011)
Owing to the number of state and non-state actors seeking to influence the regulation of street hawking and enforcement practices, none of them is able to implement a vision of urban development in toto. All actors proclaim a preference for ‘formality’, but this is often simply a euphemism for their preferred vision of urban development – and augmentation of their power to control urban space – rather than an objective type of space or land use. Thus, the most important variable in predicting which interest group(s) will support or subvert a planning initiative or court order is its effect on their current and future control over, and access to, urban space. For example, authorities may tacitly allow hawkers to operate in a particular area, while they would doggedly resist any effort to legally sanction the same hawkers as this could diminish their ability to control – and alter – this space in the future.
Street hawkers’ behaviour was guided by a desire to secure access to urban space. To this end hawkers routinely tried to meet the demands of state and non-state actors alike; a single hawker may apply for a license with municipal authorities, pay rent to a local gang for access to a market, become a member of an entrepreneurial union, and seek legal advice from a sympathetic NGO. In the case of Kabari Bazaar hawkers considered themselves powerless against municipal authorities who they perceived as predatory. One hawker summed up the situation as such: ‘government is government, we can’t win over the government … The government will win if there’s a fight’ (personal communication, June 2011). Hawkers explained that paying rent to the gang offered a measure of protection from predatory officials, while they simultaneously expressed near-unanimous frustration with the government for not granting them legal access to space. The market’s history of relocation, combined with weekly rumours of the possibility of receiving licenses, impending raids and relocation, has left hawkers with a sense of abandonment. One hawker explained ‘I don’t have a belief [in anyone]. Who do I believe in? Trust is broken often’ (personal communication, October 2011). Thus, rather than expressing loyalty to a particular benefactor, hawkers maintained access to space through their interactions with a range of actors, and they exhibited risk-averse behaviour; if they were able to secure access to space, however tenuously, the decision to change locations was not taken lightly.
Conclusion
This paper has shown that urban informality cannot be normatively understood as space in which the poor can flourish beyond the reach of the state, or as a space where the state can abdicate the provision of basic services and relegate the poor. It can indeed be either of these – or a hybrid for that matter – so scholars should resist lending it normative content by either celebrating or lamenting its existence. The definition of ‘formality’ is not an objective classification, but rather it is produced in the course of negotiations and struggles among multiple interest groups. While the boundary between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ remains in a state of flux and is often blurry, the contestations over the definitions and delineation of these terms can have severe consequences as regulatory regimes can be (re)envisioned and enforced. In the example given by Gautam Bhan (2009), a shift in the regulation of informal settlements resulted in the demolition of a slum with approximately 150,000 inhabitants. This paper has sought to highlight the ambiguities surrounding the regulation of the urban poor’s use of public space for their work. Unlike the event of a slum demolition in which municipal authorities can quite rapidly transform a slum into a park (see Bhan, 2009), the regulation of public space for work is an ongoing process that is never complete. Exclusionary regulations can be imposed, but they can also be subverted, reversed and challenged.
The contention surrounding the regulation of street hawking in Delhi demonstrates that ‘the state’ is not a singular entity with clearly defined objectives, but rather it is fractured and comprises multiple interest groups with competing goals. In Delhi municipal authorities tasked with enforcing land-use regulations have historically sought to limit street hawkers’ access to urban space, but the judiciary recognised street hawkers’ use of space as legitimate until 2011 when a ruling empowered municipal authorities to evict street hawkers. In spite of the emergence of a nascent consensus among municipal officials and the Delhi High Court, however, power is dispersed across a landscape of highly varied sites of regulation including courtrooms and municipal offices, NGO offices, sidewalks, roadsides, neighbourhoods and markets. At each of these sites multiple state and non-state actors struggle to impose a regulatory regime that outlines how and by whom urban space is used, and these competing visions are uneasily reconciled through constant struggle and (re)negotiation. In this dynamic environment state and non-state actors feel compelled to act and react – alliances form and break down, laws are passed but they can be subverted or disregarded, markets are raided but street hawkers evade the authorities, NGOs and unions launch legal challenges – yet the dispersed nature of power prevents any single interest group from imposing its preferred vision of ‘formality’ in toto.
Street hawkers maintain tenuous access to space through a range of strategies that include ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ practices. They must constantly adapt to the shifting regulatory environment and enforcement practices of both municipal authorities and non-state actors, and there is not a single strategy that can reverse exclusionary urban planning regimes. Meanwhile, there is uniform discontent and shared frustration with the prevalence of informal land use; planners cannot enforce regulations, hawkers cannot obtain licenses, shopkeepers complain that footpaths are congested, NGOs are worn down by bureaucratic obstinacy, and judges cynically issue directives that they know full well will not be enforced. Given the number of state and non-state actors involved in regulating street hawking across a range of sites, street hawking in Delhi is likely to remain in a state of negotiated (im)permanence.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Yuko Aoyama, Jim Murphy, Mark Davidson, Dick Peet, Rory Horner, Dan Haberly and three very helpful anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts. The usual disclaimers apply.
Funding
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the George Perkins Marsh Institute.