[The Bombay High Court ruled in
favor of the Shiv Sena after the city government reassured the court that the
program would abide by the rules. Since then, the party has continued to set up
snack stalls and kiosks, but Avkash Jadhav, Shiv Sena’s city government nominee
to oversee civic activities, acknowledged that a number of Shiv vada pav stalls
remained unlicensed.]
By
Mansi Choksi
 |
|
Mansi
Choksi
A stall
affiliated with the Shiv Sena party selling vada pav, a popular snack in
Mumbai.
|
MUMBAI,
India — When Arun Garde set out to sell vada pav, the
popular street snack of a potato patty in a bun, in south Mumbai in November,
the city government closed down his stall before his fourth customer had
finished eating. Mr. Garde, 50, watched in horror as his booth, utensils and
supplies were thrown into the back of a truck because he was hawking without a
license.
A month later, Mr. Garde was back at the same
spot near a taxi stand, happily frying potato fritters at a kiosk branded with
the name of Shiv Sena, the Hindu nationalist party that dominates the capital
of Maharashtra State, and painted saffron, the party’s color. In exchange for a
free kiosk and the party’s patronage, Mr. Garde had rebranded his vada pav as
“Shiv vada pav.”
Since he struck the deal, Mr. Garde has not
been fined by the municipal corporation of Mumbai, which is run by a Shiv Sena
majority.
“The Shiv Sena is helping Maharashtrians like
us,” Mr. Garde said. “So we should also help them by voting for them.”
With one month left before voters in the
western state of Maharashtra go to the polls, Shiv vada pav stalls and carts
have quietly expanded in neighborhoods that have large Maharashtrian, or ethnic
Marathi, populations, like Girgaum, Shivaji Park and Dadar. Under the Shiv Vada
Pav program by the Shiv Sena, Marathi people are provided kiosks and handcarts
and assistance in obtaining city licenses to sell the street snack. While the
party had also announced that it would train Maharashtrians to make vada pav,
the plan was later dropped.
The party, which demands preferential
treatment for Marathi people over migrants, introduced the Shiv Vada Pav
initiative in 2009, before the last national elections, as a way to provide
employment to Maharashtrian youth and elevate the vada pav, a uniquely Mumbai
snack, to a global symbol of local pride. At the time, Uddhav Thackeray, then
the party’s executive president,boasted that
the Shiv vada pav would compete with McDonald’s and KFC.
This election season, however, the Shiv Sena
is playing down its program, said Harshal Pradhan, head of Shiv Sena’s research
and development department, because of the opposition it drew from Mumbai
residents when it was first announced.
Hygiene concerns were cited in a 2009 public
interest lawsuit filed by a citizens’ group in the Bombay High Court against
the Shiv Sena program after the city government began issuing 125 licenses to
these vendors. The lawsuit also argued that the Shiv vada pav handcarts and
kiosks would make the sidewalks even more crowded and would violate Supreme Court
guidelines on street food and no-hawking zones.
The Bombay High Court ruled in
favor of the Shiv Sena after the city government reassured the court that the
program would abide by the rules. Since then, the party has continued to set up
snack stalls and kiosks, but Avkash Jadhav, Shiv Sena’s city government nominee
to oversee civic activities, acknowledged that a number of Shiv vada pav stalls
remained unlicensed.
“It is a very tedious process. While stall
owners are encouraged to seek licensing permission from the wards, some of them
eventually give up,” he said.
Mr. Pradhan emphasized that Shiv Sena was
committed to following the city’s rules. “The party cannot be faulted for
encouraging entrepreneurship among Marathi youth,” he said. “Sena leaders in
each neighborhood try to help acquire licenses, but the process is slow and
complicated.” He declined to disclose how many vendors the party had helped.
Mr. Pradhan may have been reluctant to talk
about the party’s work with vada pav sellers, but Dilip Katke, a building
contractor who is hoping to land a spot on the Shiv Sena ticket in the assembly
elections, had no such qualms. The new wave of street food stalls showed how
the party took care of its people, he declared.
“This party thinks like a caring mother,” he
said while sitting in his all-white air-conditioned office in suburban Mumbai
and sporting a saffron scarf around his neck.
“We can see that Mumbaikars are always in a
hurry,” he added, referring to the residents of Mumbai. “They may not even have
time to eat lunch, and not everyone can afford to buy a big, nice pizza.”
And like a good mother, the party looked after
the public’s health, he said. “With this scheme, we can control the vada pav’s
price and make sure it is produced hygienically.
“Anyone can eat vada pav for as little as 10
rupees without risking their health, as our people are given gloves and caps,”
he said.
The party may provide gloves and caps to its
vada pav workers, but enforcement appears to be spotty. At Harish Kanu
Gorivale’s Shiv vada pav stall in the Grant Road neighborhood, a mound of
boiled potatoes was being kneaded with bare hands and mixed with chiles, garlic
and curry powder.
As Mr. Gorivale coated the inside of a bun
with chutney and stuck a potato fritter inside, a cloud of flies hovered over a
tray of hot patties. Beside his stall was an overflowing dustbin and a dirty
cloth on which his customers wiped their hands.
Nitesh Rane, son of Narayan Rane, the minister
for industry, ports and employment in Maharashtra and a Congress party member,
criticized the Shiv Sena for an election-year expansion of a program that
operated without licenses. Mr. Rane blamed the city government for allowing it
to happen.
“The same thing had happened before the
municipal elections in 2012,” said Mr. Rane, who runs a nonprofit called
Swabhiman Sanghatna, which focuses on youth issues. Back then, Swabhiman
Sanghatna introduced its own unlicensed stalls selling what it called the
Chhatrapati vada pav, named after the warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji, and
dared the city government to shut them down while it allowed the similarly
unlicensed Shiv Sena vendors to operate.
“Shiv vada pav stalls are illegal and do a
disservice to Marathi youth,” he said. “It is a way to keep them low in the
socioeconomic ladder. How many people in Mr. Thackeray’s family are encouraged
to start vada pav stalls?”
Illegal or not, plenty of people appear to be
eager to enter the street food business. Outside Mr. Katke’s office, two men,
both barefoot, waited to meet him. One wanted help resolving a dispute with his
neighbor over a water connection, and the other wanted to apply for a Shiv vada
pav stall.
“See, we are helping people, getting them jobs
while giving every Mumbaikar his favorite food,” Mr. Katke said.
Mansi Choksi is a freelance journalist based
in Mumbai. Follow her on Twitter @mansi_choksi.
