Rethinking ‘Aesthetic Environments’ in Cities: Politics, Resistance, and Informal Street Vending in Kolkata, West Bengal

Abstract

Street vendors, often called ‘hawkers’ in South Asia, form a vital part of Kolkata’s vibrant streets. Yet, as Indian cities are increasingly positioned as engines of national economic growth, there has been a growing intolerance towards the presence of these informal actors in public spaces. Street-vending spaces are being perceived as illegitimate, disorderly and antithetical to the idea of a "world-class" city. With the state favouring privatised and sanitised spaces centred around bourgeois aesthetics, street vending sites, on the other hand, are deemed as embarrassing and out of place in the modern city. Concerns over ‘congestion’ and ‘pollution’ have fuelled routine crackdowns and sweeping cleanup drives, rendering exclusion and displacement a normalised aspect of urban management. As a result, hawkers are left with contestations, political mobilisation and negotiations as their means to fight back. Drawing on ethnographic interviews and focus group discussions with street vendors and hawker organisations, this study uncovers the creative arrangements and tactics hawkers employ to resist eviction and reclaim their space in the city. Our findings challenge simplistic portrayals of street vendors as mere ‘vote banks’, revealing instead that they are sophisticated political thinkers who participate in urban governance at the micro-level. Through what we call the “politics of neutrality”, Kolkata’s street vendors vertically voice their concerns and navigate the paradox of remaining apolitically political to materialise their needs.