Anushka Shahdadpuri (Founder Aamchi, Workshop Facilitator)

Since the reforms of the 1990s, informal street trading has played an ever-growing role in India’s urban economies. In March 2014, a new federal law protecting the rights of street traders (Street Vendors Act) was adopted, which recognized the legitimacy and legality of their activities through a process of regularization. This legal arrangement was intended to introduce new modes of governance applicable to public space, which would include street vendors, a marginal population that would now enjoy new opportunities of contributing to the urban future. Nevertheless, hawking is an activity still decriminalized by the authorities in Mumbai. It is against the background of widespread competition for urban space and resources that this graphic novel analyses the social, political and spatial organization of street trading and its development, together with the conflicts that arise from it.

The graphic novel emerges from the author's own experience of both living in the city of Mumbai and working with people in the informal sector. A large section of street vendors in urban areas are those with low skills and who have migrated to the larger cities from rural areas or small towns in search of employment. These people take to street vending when they do not find other means of livelihood. In most cities hawking is regarded as an illegal activity. There are municipal and police laws that impose restrictions on the trade. In most cases these laws do not directly prohibit hawking as a profession. They impose restrictions on the use of urban space for street vending. It is within this context that the graphic novel tries to objectively showcase the problems of street vendors in urban areas. Its scope is not restricted to street vendors alone but it tries to relate the profession in the wider urban context by examining their legality in the city, the problems they face, the perceptions of the urban bourgeoisies towards them, and the their position in urban society. Simultaneously, throughout the study, the story tries to seek the understanding of who has the greater right to the city and its public places.

Mumbai is undergoing a reorganization in its governance, with increasing participation by part of civil society through resident associations, which essentially represent the upper-middle-class. Originally created to improve urban services (Zérah 2007, Baud and Nainan 2008), they increasingly operate in defense of public spaces and seem particularly active in operations to eradicate all forms of informal street use (Anjaria 2009). Their normative conceptions of public space and participation are contributing to a redefinition of the notion of urban citizenship in India’s cities