Speaker
Description
The informal economy, comprising a wide range of unregulated economic activities, provides jobs for almost two billion of the world’s workers today. In developing nations, such as India, this share is around 90%. As the informal economy dominates the world’s employment and the nature of urbanization, it also creates challenges, especially
in developing countries, to comprehend and control informality. Informal employment does not strictly adhere to national legislation, income taxation, social security, or employment benefits and, therefore, is prone to injustice, human rights, and labor moralities. In India, almost two-thirds of the workers are in the informal sector; around 89% of such workers reside below the poverty level, and about 80% live in cities. Vending and hawking in urban streets are India’s most popular forms of informal self-employment and are a crucial source of income for many in the dearth of organized sector jobs.
Government initiatives to address the needs of such informal vendors are inadequate, and hence, in India and other Global South countries, Grassroots Organizations (GROs) play a crucial role in institutionalizing such informality. The GRO, Hawker Sangram Committee (HSC) in Kolkata, India, united hawkers’ unions across the city, state, and country, formed the National Hawker Federation, and passed the 2014 Street Vendors Act, legalizing street hawking and vending in the country. This study aims to understand how GROs like HSC work and their roles in the context of informal street vendors and hawkers when formal means of legitimization are unavailable. The study employs a comprehensive multi-method approach, including an archival study of old newspaper articles and working documents of HSC; interviews with HSC board members, selected union leaders, and their member hawkers; and observation and photo documentation of their daily operations, protests, and rallies, and their hawking and vending practices.
The study finds that HSC contributes to legalizing informal street vendors and hawkers at two levels. At the macro level, HSC’s state and national initiatives have solved grassroots issues more permanently and universally. At this level, HSC acts as a mediator between the government, the public, and the hawkers; an advocate for hawkers’ welfare and rights; a facilitator of structured protest for the legalization of hawkers; a resource builder to gather intellectual help for grassroots activism; and a trust builder between the marginalized and the government. At the micro-level, HSC addresses the needs of the unions and the hawkers, who do not have or require government intervention. Here, HSC performs as an arbitrator solving the issues of hawkers and unions locally; a social entrepreneur innovating new ways of vending and hawking to keep up with the changing society; a local problem solver mitigating local issues without government interventions; a housekeeper regulating in-house hawkers and maintaining their goodwill in the society; and a bookkeeper documenting hawkers’ registrations, licensing, events, protests, policies, and workings. HSC’s efforts to legitimize informal street hawkers in India have been unique, unprecedented, and revolutionary. Although the actual implementation of the Act is still underway, HSC’s journey since its inception tells the story of how GROs operate to address grassroots social issues, in this case, to legitimize the hawkers. As the informal sector is expected to grow with global urbanization, recognizing GROs’ roles in supporting marginalized individuals can provide useful policy insights to governments, practitioners, and scholars across nations.
References
Mahato, B., and A. Roy. (2023) “Chapter 9: Formalization of the Informal Sector through Hawkers’ Unions in Kolkata, India” in Keeping Small Businesses in Place - Voices from the Field: Case Studies of Communities Combating Commercial Gentrification. University of Maryland: National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education.
Bandyopadhyay, R. (2016). Institutionalizing Informality: The hawkers’ question in post-colonial Calcutta. Modern Asian Studies, 50(2): 675–717.
Bhowmik, S. K. (2005) “Street Vendors in Asia: A Review.” Economic and Political Weekly, 40(22/23): 2256-2264.
Bose, B. S., and Y. Mishra. (2013). Notes On: Street Vendors Kolkata: A Review. Labor Law Journal, 64(3),165–172.
| Keywords | Grassroots Organization; Informal Economy; Street Vendors; Global South; Kolkata; India |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
