Delhi's medieval bulwark against
foreign retailers By Raja
Murthy
DELHI - Old Delhi's famous Khari
Baoli, Asia's largest spice market, serves a
pungent 17th century warning why Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh could lose his job if he lets
foreign direct investment (FDI) take over the
country's US$500 billion retail industry.
Born in medieval days in Chandni Chowk
("Market of the Moon") near the Red Fort in Old
Delhi, Khari Baoli today flourishes with 4,500
retailers, more than 5,000 wholesalers selling
hundreds of varieties of spices, dry fruits and
grains.
Much as sunlight struggles to
pierce these narrow alleys between decaying
100-year-old buildings, the entry of the neon
lights of a WalMart to Khari Baoli looks as
probable as snowfall in the
Sahara, or Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad being elected mayor of Tel Aviv.
Khari Baoli, meaning "salty water well",
does business in traditional, non-documented,
low-cost methods, centuries-old ways largely
unchanged since the days when imperial cooks in
the nearby Red Fort bought groceries from here to
feed Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666).
Most Khari Baoli shops do not even own a
name; some are just called by numbers - like the
celebrated "Chawal Wale 13", or "Rice-selling
Fellow No 13".
Doorless storefronts
display open sacks of red chili, turmeric, cumin,
cinnamon, tamarind, saffron and hundreds of kinds
of spices, grains, exotic herbs, nuts and
condiments that fill the senses, in the world's
biggest spice bazaar.
Medieval European
adventurers Christopher Columbus and Vasco da
Gama, who sailed unknown seas searching for spice
routes to India, would have turned rapturous at
the sight of these thousands of little Aladdin's
caves bursting with sacks of edible aromatic
treasures.
India's history changed with
European traders like the East India Company
exploiting the spice trade and a politically weak
India of the 18th century. The political strength
of the current central government would not
inspire composers of ballads, but Khari Baoli is
unwavering in its opposition to laying out welcome
mats for foreign invaders.
Local traders
are aghast at the increasingly volatile issue of
having their 360-year history changed by proposals
that could lead to foreign companies dominating
India's retail trade. Corporate public relations
arguments that FDI improves the infrastructure and
quality of India's food-supply chain clatter on
deaf ears here.
"We are totally against
FDI here," Ajay Batra, president of the spice
traders' retail association, emphatically told
Asia Times Online. "It would kick us in our
stomach, take away our livelihood."
More
than 500,000 businesspeople, workers and their
families depend on Khari Baoli for a living.
Thousands here earn far less than a WalMart
employee, but unlike uniformed wage earners at
global supermarket chains, Khari Baoli people are
guaranteed a humble job for life - if the tribe of
foreign billionaires leaves them alone and finds
other ways to earn their endless piles of money.
The billionaire tribe's employees, or
victims, in neighboring China had a taste of FDI
realities this month. British retail giant Tesco
unceremoniously shut down four stores in Bengbu,
Tieling, Taizhou and Changshu, among its 132
outlets in China. The "difficult decision" was to
serve "strategically important areas", explained a
company statement.
Generations of Khari
Baoli workers, in contrast, have not suffered
being made such "strategic" scapegoats.
The Khari Baoli market is older than the
USA. In July, US President Barack Obama urged
India to make "difficult decisions", such as
allowing 100% ownership by foreign companies in
the retail market. He would have realized the
exact difficulties they would face if he had taken
a stroll down Chandni Chowk during his visit to
Delhi in 2010.
Alongside businesspeople
transacting average monthly turnover of $200
million are thousands of handcart pullers,
porters, bullock-cart and rickshaw operators and
other daily wage earners eking out a precarious
living. This low-cost, non-regulated labor force
shoulders the burden of keeping food prices
somewhat affordable for India's vast population.
Multiply Khari Baoli by thousands of
smaller wholesale and retail markets across India
and 100% FDI in multi-brand retail can be seen for
what is is - a volcanic issue affecting hundreds
of millions of families. Their wage earners have
no citizenship in the glass-and-chrome world of
mega-markets.
Khari Baoli is proof of how,
at this phase of India's economic evolution, only
a political party eager to commit electoral
suicide would hand over retail trade to Carrefour,
Auchan and other multibillionaire global chains.
"Manmohan Singh and his government are
selling India to WalMart and Tesco," Batra said,
and he was not entirely exaggerating. More than
80% of India's 1.2 billion people depend on
agriculture and related businesses.
Unlike
WalMart executives, Batra does his work sitting
cross-legged on a white quilt-like mattress,
alongside a white bolster. Two plastic chairs
await visitors. A mobile phone and a small
calculator appear to be the only other
21st-century necessities for business. A similar
office infrastructure exists across Khari Baoli. A
few young traders peer at laptop monitors.
"Some of the smaller traders here do
business worth crores [1 crore = 10 million] of
rupees a day operating out of places as small as 4
by 4 meters," said Vinay Aggarwal, a wholesaler of
salt in the oldest region of Khari Baoli. The
alleys around his ancestral shop are so narrow
only handcarts can enter laden with sacks of
merchandise.
Aggarwal calls this market
the epicenter of the world's spice and dry fruit
trade. "Sixty percent of California almonds come
here," he said, offering his guest a small plastic
cup of tea. "Dry fruits from even
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan come through
clandestine routes to Khari Baoli." The market
feeds grocery needs of most of northern and
central India, and exports to nearly every country
worldwide.
Aggarwal's shop looks more or
less the same, he says, as it did when his
grandfather Laxmi Narayan started the business in
1946. Some shops around him are more than 200
years old.
It's not just the spice
business, but its supporting acumen,
infrastructure and culture that have been passed
down across centuries. The street food around
Khari Baoli and Old Delhi, for instance, is among
the best in India, if not Asia. Cooking expertise
has been honed for more than seven generations.
About 100 meters away from Aggarwal's salt
operations, food-cart operator Raj Kumar sells his
extra-large, herbs-laced naan (leavened bread
baked in tandoori ovens). Eating the usual fluffy
naan can be a bit like chewing rubber, but this
wondrous version is soft as marshmallow. The plate
of naan comes with a dollop of gently spiced
lentils, curry and yogurt salad.
The
middle-aged Raj Kumar grinned and nodded knowingly
when he heard, "I've never had naan as good as
these." He hears this often, thanks to his
grandfather who taught him the delicious secrets
of his trade. And he will vote against any
government allowing foreign billionaires to
threaten his existence serving people generous
helpings of a memorable meal costing 25 rupees,
less than half a dollar.
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Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
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