Street vendors are seen as a public nuisance — they crowd the pavements, spill onto busy streets, and add chaos to the hustle and bustle of the city. The modernist imagination of the city is built upon the ideals of order and regulation. Street vendors disrupt this curated vision of urban order.

But who decides who belongs to the city? Whenever the questions of belonging and of aestheticising the city come, it is the middle and the upper middle class that get consideration. Ironically, while these sections consider street vendors as encroachers, millions of urban residents depend on their services every day.

This debate is ultimately about citizenship and the ‘right to the city’. Urban citizenship is not a privilege of the elite alone. The vast population of the urban poor must have its voice and visibility in the conceptualisation of the modern city. The process of urbanisation should be more inclusive — democratic — whereby everyone would be equally integrated in the urban planning.

Street vendors are workers of the informal economy: this sector employs over 90% of India’s workforce. Most of these vendors moved to cities for better opportunities and to escape rural poverty but were unsuccessful in securing regular jobs due to low levels of skill and education. Rather than depending entirely on State welfare, they chose to create their own livelihood through meagre resources.

In doing so, not only do they sustain their own households but also contribute to the wider economy. Street vending generates employment, provides a wide range of affordable goods and services to urban populations, circulates capital locally, and contributes to the GDP. Instead of criminalising street vending through the elite notion of urban aesthetics, we should recognise it as a productive activity in urban life.

The absence of recognition of street vending as a legitimate activity has resulted in this informal economy being run by an informal governance apparatus marked by rent-seeking, extortion, harassment, and eviction by local authorities. Studies show that about 20% of the meagre earnings of street vendors are paid as rent.

Ironically, the Indian judiciary has repeatedly recognised the rights of street vendors. In Sodan Singh versus New Delhi Municipal Corporation, it stated explicitly that the right to carry on trade or business established in Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution “if properly regulated, cannot be denied on the ground that the streets are meant exclusively for passing or re-passing and for no other use.” Through these and other rulings, the courts have firmly upheld street vendors’ right to use public space, recognising their role in reducing poverty and providing affordable goods to urban residents.

The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, which protects the rights of urban street vendors, places explicit restrictions on merchandise seizures, evictions, and relocations. However, it does not get implemented properly. The result is a paradox: vendors’ rights are protected on paper but denied in practice.

In the absence of State capacity to absorb these vast populations in the formal employment, the State should not resort to eviction of street vendors for regulating urban order, thereby depriving them of their livelihood. It must balance the right to livelihood and the need to govern urban space more effectively. Instead of eviction, it should take proactive measures to address the problems of congestion, pedestrian movement, and sanitation resulting from poor management. The solution lies in the State recognising street vending as a regulated, legitimate practice and street vendors as integral, rightful participants of city life.

Banani Ghosh is a social science researcher working on welfare politics in contemporary India