The death of a Hawker in Calcutta – Who is Responsible?

Posted by Calcutta Board in Calcutta/Kolkata Jun 23rd, 2008 | 3 responses

The death of a Hawker in Calcutta – Who is Responsible?
Hawker is not an English word! However it is a very common tern in Calcutta. In 1996, the left front government started the “Operation Sunshine” to eradicate hawkers from the Calcutta’s pavements. During the clean up even by Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) about 1640 stalls were ransacked, looted, set on fire and razed to the ground. 102 hawkers were arrested.

Facts:
1. Hawkers in Kolkata numbering 275,000 generated business worth Rs. 8,772 crore (around 2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005.
2. Almost 80 per cent of the pavements in Calcutta were encroached by hawkers and illegal settlers

Why?

Polulation is Calcutta has grown dramatically in last several decades. The extreme polpulation growth did not offer everybody a better life. Instend, like many other urban cities in India, the new population found themselves surrounded by huge poverty. The 1951 census found that only 33.2 percent of Kolkata’s inhabitants were city-born, the rest were immigrants: 12.3 percent were from elsewhere in West Bengal, 26.6 percent from other Indian states, and 26.9 percent from East Pakistan. In 1981, the Government of West Bengal estimated the total number of persons displaced from East Bengal to the state to be around 8 million or one sixth of the total population of the state. Several million refugees settled in the outskirts of Kolkata.

While the economy of Kolkata has been sliding backwards in many respects, there has been remarkable expansion in certain areas – real estate, information technology and retail trade. Big shopping centres have come up, and along with it there has been a large increase in small shops and pavement stalls. INOX like movie complexes are setting the trend in Calcutta Life. Several Night Clubs are keeping the calcuttans awake even late at night. Tata Nano is also reacing the middle class families.

Even after all of our improvents in terms of buildings and shopping complexes and fly-overs, there are still a great many people who has no job. There are too many young fellw with a bachelors degree looking for work. With more people, there exist more competetion. It is not uncommon to receive 100s of applications for only a mere 5000 rupess/month job in Calcutta. So, people are still exploring other options. When they are left with nothing, the choose Hawking as an option.

We see hawkers everywhere. They are at the streets selling cloths, books (think about College Square), food products (Futchka, Jhalmuri etc), electronics (Cameras, Watches, CDs, Movies, etc) and what not. But even being a hawker is not an easy job. There are too many hawkers selling too many products. Sometimes some of the vital sopts in the city are already booked by old hawkers too. Sometimes the Hawkers Association also have few things to say. So people have long started exploring various places apart from the city pavements in Calcutta. In local trains to Howrah or Sealdah, you will pretty much find every kind of products during your short journey including soap, tooth-paste, tooth brush, weighing machine, choths, foods, vegetables and what not.

Those hawkers hardly get any rest. They compete with other hawkers in the same compartment in the train. They sale their products cheap and does not make enough money compared to the hardship they have to take to earn their livelihood. They have also spread in buses for quite some time. Few months back, I read a news about a hawker selling some product in “Metro Rail” in Calcutta that made people mad!

They need some soft corner and some help from us. They are not stealing. They are just trying very hard to live and support their family. I am writng this long article in a very sad mood as I read about the death of a yong hawker today in one of the most read bengali newspaper. They reported that the death was not natural. The poor lad was late in catching the train. He tried to jump into a ladies compartment in hurry, but the ladies did not allow this 22 year old lad and pushed him outsite. He fell, lost his balance, cut both of his legs and finally died.

Who should we blame for the death of an innocent hawker? Lets see.
1. Hawking is illegal or you need some hawker ID from the hawker association.
2. Ladies compartments are “ladies” only.
3. Pushing a person outside the compartment is murder.

I am not sure who should we blame. If the ladies pushed him, there might have been some reason. They might have been harassed by some other hawker previously. Still, pushing somebody from a running train is simply inhumane. If you think deeper you will feel that it is also a fault of out city, we are not able to produce enjough jobs. We are failing to provide better life to millions of people. Are there are political reasons? Are there educational issues? I don’t know. But we desperately need a better city with no loss of young life. Lets pay some respect to the young hawker and learn a lesson from this incident and hope for a better future in Calcutta lifestyle.

References: I have partially used the reference for wring this article.

Great Bengali and Kolkata Featured products for our Global Customers. Enjoy wonderful deal.

3 Responses to “The death of a Hawker in Calcutta – Who is Responsible?”

Sunil Baran Chakrabarti says:

May 26, 2009 at 7:44 am

I had gone to this article and appreciate. But, I have some comments on these street Hawkers. They should form a very rigit code of conducts between themselves with respect to the behavour towards pedestrins. In most of the cases they are annoying to the pedenstrins. Often they cheat. An Item costs Rs.5/- They will ask 100/-. Then scuffle goes on and reliability comes down. People purchase but they also want removal of these Hakwers. Let them form of code of conduct and coexistence so that Pedestrins must not have any problem while moving through footpaths in a dignified way. A few Hawkers are either thief, cheat or anti social for which conplete Hawkers community are pretend to be against public sentiment though these public goes again to Hawkers for purchasing goods. Common Public does not have any platform so they can not protest against these Hawkers activities. Let Hawkers accomodate foot path but at the same time they must understand that a Mother should walk comfortably with her Kids. Hawkers must add to the beautifications of their surroundings (removal of garbages and not creating any trafic obstacle) and make an atmosphere of fair, whatever the space avail within the particular place. I am sure, if they create a confidence like this to the public in their heart, they can increase their sales creating a congenial atmosphere.
PUBLIC GOES TO HAWKERS BUT ALSO HATE THEM AND WANT THEM TO REMOVE FROM FOOT PATH.(WHY THIS IS CONTRADICTORY?) GOOD LUCK TO HAWKERS
Ong Keith says:

January 3, 2010 at 3:35 pm

Before enrolling into any online degree, please check and make sure that it is accredited as the most fundamental.

Ong Keith
Easiest Masters Degree
matt nathanson music fan says:

January 24, 2010 at 7:29 am

Great read, thanks for putting it up.