Haftas and the art of hawker protection

This explains why the 250-odd hawkers selling bananas on hand-carts in Ghatkopar are never harassed by police. A social worker on condition of anonymity said the carts belonged to Munna, a local goon who earns a two-way profit by supplying goods and collecting hafta and rents for the carts. As Munna makes monthly payments to police and other authorities, all the 250 hawkers (concealed hawkers) whose carts carry identification marks are never harassed.

But the policy of pleasing’ the authorities is not followed everywhere. In the lanes of Bhendi Bazaar, no police or civic official would dare to demand haftas. “The entire area is protected by an underworld gang,” said a local shopkeeper.

Business is of a different nature in A-ward, Dadar, and some other parts of the city, where most of the hawkers are employed by hawkers turned entreprenuers. “Ten per cent of these hawkers own estates and vehicles,” said researcher R N Sharma of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), recounting an incident when one of his students conducting the census for YUVA was offered a lift by a hawker in his Ceilo. The hawker had flown in from Pune especially to fill the form after he was informed of the census by his employees.’

“Considering that the estimated annual turnover of vegetable vendors (retailers) alone is over Rs 1000 crore, the stake-holders in the trade form a powerful lobby today,” remarked Sharma.

Also, new avenues of trade have been opened up recently at places like Dadar, where outlets for selling goods produced in the domestic (registered and unregistered production units) sector like the powerlooms of Bhiwandi and Surat have found a ready market, raising the stakes even higher.

According to the United Nations Development Programme report, three-fourths of Mumbai’s population will soon be residing in slums and dilapidated structures. “Given the steadily increasing number of people working in the unorganised sector, wherein hawking is the most preferred trade, the politics of votebanks becomes very important,” Sharma said.

Explaining that this class always exercises its right to franchise, unlike people from the more privileged classes, Sharma points to a disturbing reality where hawking and other unorganised professions become very vital in city politics. “Local issues force the state to enter into compulsive politics’ where it tends to serve the interests of various influential groups,” he noted.

As of now, a consensus needs to be reached between administrators and hawkers unions if the proliferation of hawkers has to be checked. The hide and seek’ game played by the civic administration and the hawkers has punctured changes for decades. The big change came with the landmark Supreme Court order in 1985 in response to a petition filed by the Bombay Hawkers Union against the BMC. The judgement ordered the demarcation of hawking and non-hawking zones as per a scheme chalked out by then municipal commissioner D M Sukthankar. Since the BMC is yet to implement the scheme, the hawkers have managed to obtain protection through injunctions.

“Before 1985, appeals filed by the hawkers were rejected by the City Civil Court. But after this judgement, appeals were admitted on the grounds that any action against hawkers should follow the course of the 1985 judgement,” said N U Matai, law officer, BMC. There are about 52 injunctions in the matter, each involving a group of hawkers.