the informal sector

Most of the migrants in Mumbai are part of the city's informal labor force.  As I've been talking to NGO workers, professors and family members over the last few days, I've heard lots of facts and thoughts on the informal sector... I want to jot down some of the stuff I found the most interesting.

The informal sector is "under-the-table," outside of government regulation.  In a way, the people who constitute it are kind of outsiders in the city, not integrated into the formal economy, not paying taxes or official rents and often living in ad hoc and unsanitary settlements.  They also do not have labor rights or the same private property and residence rights that are typical in the formal sector.  I think that this situation is particularly unstable for them because in the political climate of today, they are also portrayed as cultural outsiders by certain political parties.  And the direction of local and state government policies seems to be making it harder, not easier, for them to formalize their residences and livelihoods in the city.

Despite a status that seems temporary, many of them have lived in Mumbai for all or most of their lives and their presence and economic activities are indispensable.  Most of my own food and transportation needs here are met by the informal sector.  And they do pay "rents" (in the form of bribes) to government officials and landlords.   If they live in a "declared slum," then the government is responsible for ensuring they have access to city services like electricity and water.  But if they are in an undeclared slum, they do not have these things, or they get them through bribes and backdoor channels.

Informal sector activities include a truly huge array of things.  All of the hawkers that sell various things in carts on the street (hawking is illegal), food vendors, waste removal workers, maids, cooks and other household workers, clothes makers, construction workers (who are hired by subcontractors and paid in cash), cab and rickshaw drivers, and the endless number of people that you can hire for all sorts of small jobs... all of these are part of the informal sector.  Even factories-- like many places in the Dharavi slum that produce snacks, leather, buckles, garments-- are informal because they occupy their land unofficially by paying bribes to government officials, and always face the threat of destruction to make room for more upscale development. 

To give me an idea of the scale of production that falls into this sector, Indira (my new friend from LEARN India) told me that there are about 50 farsan (snack) factories in Dharavi alone, and they produce about 50,000 kgs (110,000 lbs) of food per day that goes into Mumbai.  This is a low estimate... its more when there is a major event or festival.  Its clear that the informal sector is critical for meeting the city's demand for consumption.  (By the way, the term "factory" may be a bit misleading here... they are called factories, but a better way to describe them would be large clusters of small scale, labor intensive production.  For example, a garment factory is likely to be several men who sit at sewing machines in small cement structures... more like sweat shops).

When we were talking about hawkers, Indira said that she thinks the very informality of the informal sector makes small human connections more possible and reduces the alienation people feel in a big city.  She said that besides its obvious economic value, the informal sector is also important  because it keeps a certain level of sanity and personal contact in society.  For example, the experience of going to a bazaar and bargaining for an item forces you to talk to people, engage with them, and even use a bit of charm.  Formal businesses, with no space for haggling, also leave little space for extended personal interaction.  She thinks thats one of the reasons that in era of supermarkets and department stores, things like local bazaars and farmers' markets are again popular in the West. 

The pictures are of a girl selling hair clips on a train, and a line of informal shops on the side of a street:

 

 

volunteering with down to earth

Today was something of a day of contrasts.

I met some friends of Aazamina's who run an NGO called Down to Earth.  They provide education for children in slums.  I took a bus from the CST station to the last bus stop in a posh area of Mumbai called Cuff Parade.  The bus drove by beautiful apartment residences and hotels, and stopped at a bus depot, right next to the slum where Down to Earth runs its classes. It may be a bit misleading to call this place a slum though.  The definition of a slum is quite contested and varies depending on who you talk to and what their interests are.  But I think most people would call this place (named Ambedkar-nagar) a slum.  But the housing in it isn't temporary or disgusting.  Most of the houses are two stories (with a small room on each floor and a simple ladder connecting the upstairs and downstairs), have cement walls and corrugated metal roofs and electricity (though it is not metered).  Its an extremely crowded place, with really narrow alleys and walkways between the structures.  And it is certainly very shabby, with a lot of crumbling cement and trash. 

But at the same time, its quite vibrant.  There are stores, people working and talking everywhere, chickens running around, food being sold.  The Indian census defines a slum as a cluster of 50 or 60 households that are dilapidated and unconnected, and the BMC declares areas slums based on different housing conditions.  But those are just technical definitions.  I guess my point is that there are really bad slums, and better off slums, and this was probably a better off one.

So I met 3 NGO workers-- Dev, Maansi and Niki, all in their 20's or early 30's and all really friendly.  As Maansi was taking me through the alleys to the NGOs headquarters, 3 or 4 people stopped her to say hello or ask a question.  Several of the kids also said hi to her.  The headquarters were in one of the cement structures.  And everything was quite clean, as I assume the houses of the people who live in this area are as well.  There were gaps in the places where the walls met the ceiling, and once two cats involved in a chase came through one corner of the room and streaked out another.  I guess things must get a bit wet inside during the rainy season.

I met two of the pupils... about 9-11 year old boys.  When I came in, they were working on sudoku puzzles with Dev.  They had pretty decent English skills, and for the most part, understood me just fine when I said simple English sentences.  Dev wanted me to help them practice their English, so I had a "Where are you from?  How many siblings do you have?" type of conversation with them.   They were really sweet boys.  Dev, Maansi and Niki told me about Down To Earth and the kind of work they do, and I think I am going to help them with teaching a couple of times a week.  And Dev offered to arrange interviews for me with the students' parents (they are mostly migrants from all different places in India) and to have one of the NGO staff accompany me.  So that will be incredibly helpful.  I'm really excited to be involved with this group.

To give me some practice, Dev called in an 18 year old guy named Nasir.  I asked him my set of questions, and he answered like he thought his parents would.  It was cool, and Dev had some great suggestions for fine-tuning my questions a bit.  I mentioned earlier that the place didn't seem like a terrible slum to me.  When I asked Nasir whether there was something he or his parents wished they could have, he told me nothing... they were doing pretty well.   Dev wasn't sure if his parents would have said the same thing, but at least this 18 year old felt pretty good about his life.

So after my introduction to Down to Earth, I stopped by Makduda Aunty's house because her family lives right in Cuff Parade.   Their flat is just gorgeous, and it was really nice to see her and get her advice on living in Mumbai.  It was particularly good to hang out with someone who I've known for a long time... helped mitigate some of the culture shock I've been feeling.  These two places were close to each other but also worlds apart (I would say a lot more so than the lives and dwellings of rich and poor people in the West).  Not just worlds apart in terms of aesthetics and facilities, but also outlook.  I guess its not surprising that I get totally different opinions on Bombay's slum issues from family and family friends here then I do from the NGO workers and the actual slum dwellers that I've met so far.  Many people on the upper-middle and upper class end don't really seem to identify with their plight.  Instead they seem to be thought of as people who are ruining Mumbai.  I've heard that opinion several times over now.

I do think both sides of the issue make legitmate points.  I'll write about those some other time.

identity

Proving ones identity seems to be one of the core issues that poor people face.  Most people in India-- about 60%-- are born in their homes, but birth certificates are issued in hospitals.  Also, the Panchayati Raj-- the local government council in each village-- issues ration cards, but in practice, the well-off members of a village tend to have them, while the rest of the people don't.  Many people are just not given proof of identity by their government institutions.  The funny thing is, India is an extremely bureaucratized place, and people need to produce a proof of identity to have any interaction with the government, and for many private commercial activities, like opening a  bank account, having a secure residence, getting a mobile phone, sending kids to school, having a major procedure at a hospital, getting (officially) married, getting a passport, voting.  The list is quite long.  In the United States, people also need to show identification for this stuff, but the difference here is that its not within many peoples' means to actually get that documentation.  

The main ID document is the ration card.  Its issued by family, and minors can get their own when they turn 18.  There's also something called a voter I-card... it is issued to individual adults when elections are held.   For migrants in Mumbai (and anywhere else), in order to be issued a ration card or a voter card, they have to prove that their name doesn't already exist on voter rolls or ration cards elsewhere.  In a lot of cases, they just sign an affidavit declaring that.  But even once that is signed and they have gone through the appropriate legal channels, its still hard to get identification for a variety of reasons.  Government officials often tack on more requirements than the law requires, and also require bribes.  In Mumbai, its a bit easier to get it done if you speak Marathi.  The BMC is a Maharashtran-dominated place, and they seem to give north Indian migrants a harder time.

The need to establish an identity has created a huge blackmarket for documents-- there are lots of forgeries (and people pay a lot for them).  That creates a big public administration problem.  It means there are tons of people with fake identities-- names that only exist on paper-- that are enrolled in school, on voter rolls, etc.  And if you go through official channels, since you probably have to pay a hefty bribe to get what you need, the process of obtaining an identity may be out of reach for the poorest people.  These are my preliminary impressions after a few conversations, I will have to verify everything and dig deeper...

Having this control over identity seems to be a major way that the state government can control its population, and maybe discriminate against migrants from other places.  In Maharashtra, the official policy is that once a migrant has been a resident of the state for a certain number of years, they are automatically entitled to a ration card.  In practice, of course, this doesn't bear out.  

Some NGOs have started issuing their own identity documents that have information like pictures, names, ages and blood types.  The identity cards I saw said "LEARN Mahila Kamgar Sangathan"  (LEARN Women Worker's Group) across the top, which meant that the women had an automatic way to show that they were part of an organization that could vouch for their reliability or character.  And while these cards aren't useful for government business, they are accepted by banks.  So since the women can open bank accounts with them, they have a good way to document their length of residence.  Since the government seems either unfair or rather dysfunctional in this matter, its like the NGOs are stepping in and taking its place.

I really want to find out more about this identification issue.  I think it might have interesting connections to my project, which is broadly about citizenship and what makes someone a citizen of a place.

food

I have consumed ridiculous quantities of food today.  I had a big breakfast because I didn't know exactly when I would be home after attending the meeting of the women's organization in Dharavi.   Around mid-morning, I went over to Zakir Uncle and Shehnaz Aunty's house-- their flat is directly upstairs.  They are fun to talk to and extremely welcoming... they invited me to lunch.  Shehnaz Aunty is a really good cook and she made fish in two different ways, both delicious.  Although they were not satisfied with my level of food consumption, I did my best... I was really full when I left.  Then, in the early evening, I met Indira, who is about my age and is a researcher and organizer with LEARN India, and she took me over to the women's meeting in Dharavi.  Only, it had been canceled.  So since we had time on our hands, she took me back to her place (a lovely apartment on the 29th floor overlooking the coast) and I hung out with her and her husband.  We went out to an extravagant dinner-- Chinese food.  I think I've felt overfed for about 14 straight hours now.

While I'm on the topic of food,  I also had two dosas yesterday... one in a restaurant with Qusay Uncle and Alifiah Aunty and one on the street with Maimoona.  Both were just excellent.  And earlier yesterday, I had gone to visit Masi Khadija, one of Dadi's sisters.  (I've heard so much about her from Dadi, it was nice to finally meet her.  She was really sweet).  As I was leaving, she brought me a glass of coconut water, and I downed it, because Shabbir uncle was waiting for me downstairs.   And then he insisted that I try some fresh orange juice (not orange, actually... it was a fruit they call a sweet lime (mosambi) that tasted suspiciously like an orange to me) from a street vendor... and I downed that too.  Here, people seem to drink things all at once... no such thing as small sips or nursing a drink.  I felt I had to keep pace.  By that time, I really did feel like my stomach was going to burst!   

So Bombay is a yummy place.

(And yet, so many people are hungry.  I have instituted a policy that if I buy myself a drink or a snack on the street, and if there is a child begging nearby, I get him/her something too.  And the funny thing is, I still end up spending under a dollar or two).

Here is the view from Indira's apt:

 

Mahila Sangathna

Mahila Sangathna means women's organization.  I met up with the members of one yesterday while they were holding a rally to agitate for ration cards.  There were about 50 women, maybe more, and they marched through several main roads in the Dharavi area and arrived at the Dharavi ration card office.

Most of them were long term residents of Mumbai, but with family roots elsewhere, and others had moved to they city several years ago.  They had all applied for ration cards through the correct channels but to no avail.  After months of petitioning the office responsible for issuing them and getting nowhere, they were holding a public demonstration.  It was friendly and very peaceful... just a loudspeaker and several speeches about their commitment to this issue and the injustice of their situation.  Such rallies (murcha, in Hindi) happen frequently all over Mumbai as well as the rest of India, and from what I understand so far, they are a very usual form of protest.  Kind of like burning cars in France.  Though a few years ago, the Maharashtra high court made them illegal in South Mumbai-- where there is the most development-- so now they are confined to the suburbs. 

I interviewed several women.  Initially I was just talking to one person, and other women slowly joined the conversation, until I was listening to a group of five or six tag-teaming the same basic story.  They have been in Mumbai for a long time, but most of them had roots elsewhere.  They were from all over the place-- Madras, Karnataka, UP, Bihar, elsewhere in Maharashtra.  One woman there said she was born in Mumbai, although her parents still live in the south.  She had never been to their home.  So she was not technically a migrant-- Mumbai is the only home she has known-- but for the purposes of establishing residency and having access to government services, she has the same issues as her companions because her family originates from elsewhere.   The women need the city to give them ration cards so they can do simple things like enroll their kids in government schools, have access to water and electricity and get subsidized rates for certain goods. 

This group is organized through LEARN- the Labor, Education and Research Network.  The women meet on a regular schedule several times a month, and no one seems to mind if I show up at their meetings... so that's what I'll be doing on Friday and Sunday evenings!

One of the NGO leaders I talked to made the distinction between the right of free movement-- which the Indian constitution guarantees to everyone-- and the right of residency and services.  So as an Indian citizen, even if you are allowed to move freely within India, its kind of unclear whether you have a constitutional right to expect to be treated like the residents of your new location.  Something I have to look into.

 


While I was in Dharavi, I also met a really nice guy, named Pradeep, from an organization called NIRMAN.  The group focuses on the similar issues-- migrant rights, standards of living for slum-dwellers, and especially, labor rights.  Pradeep met me at the Dharavi police station, and we walked through tiny little allies, lined with food and merchandise stalls, entrances to apartment buildings, lots of goats and just a ton of people.  Incredibly, it really wasn't that dirty.  (I guess that judgement is totally relative... I just mean not that dirty in comparison to other places I've been in Mumbai so far :)

Anyway, he took about 45 mintues to tell me about his organization, and invited me to attend job training programs for (mainly migrant) construction workers and see the NGO at work.  I hope to do that next week.  I also met his colleague, Prem, who works specifically with Tamil migrants, providing them resources and community support for getting along in Mumbai.  I hope to get to know him and his work as well.

These guys have deep links with the Brihan Mumbai Corporation (the municipal government) and private companies, they run really extensive and effective programs, and impact the lives of thousands of people.  And their Dharavi headquarters are just a very modest couple of rooms with some chairs and a computer.  Talk about low overhead.

I haven't really seen the slum part of Dharavi yet, I don't think.  I went to places that seemed pretty well developed... Pradeep said that is due to the fact that developers have been razing slums and encroaching into this area for decades now.  He didn't think development was a bad thing... he likes the spread of infrastructure, services and commerce.  And his organization basically works to mitigate the negative effects, like dislocation and higher costs of living.