SAWAAL : DARE TO ASK
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EN/বাংলা
Sawaal
EN/বাংলা
AUTHOR

Shubhendu Dasgupta

Former Professor of Economics at the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Calcutta. He has long researched the history of political cartoons, posters, and public art in Bengal, and his work documenting the history of cartoons in West Bengal and Bangladesh is particularly noteworthy. Actively associated with various political and people’s movements since the 1970s, the intersections of art, politics, and public life remain a central focus of his writing and practice.

4 stories
People of the ‘Unruly’ City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-2
Monthly Feature · 18 Sep 2026

People of the ‘Unruly’ City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-2

On paper, removing one hawker is an administrative decision. In life, it affects many people. That is why eviction is often not a solution to a problem. It is a relocation of the problem. The city therefore has to learn not only from planners, but from the people who live in it. Because a city is not only bricks, concrete, roads and titles to land. A city is a name for relationships between people.

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People of the ‘Unruly’ City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-2
News · 18 Sep 2026

People of the ‘Unruly’ City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-2

On paper, removing one hawker is an administrative decision. In life, it affects many people. That is why eviction is often not a solution to a problem. It is a relocation of the problem. The city therefore has to learn not only from planners, but from the people who live in it. Because a city is not only bricks, concrete, roads and titles to land. A city is a name for relationships between people.

Read More →
People of the 'Unruly' City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-1
Monthly Feature · 11 Sep 2026

People of the 'Unruly' City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-1

This city is made as much by its pavements, open grounds, bustees, settlements beside railway lines, temporary markets, tea stalls, rickshaws, handcarts and the livelihoods of ordinary people as it is by its planned roads, flyovers, markets, houses, offices, parks, train routes and government buildings. What we so easily call ‘unruly’ or ‘messy’ has a deep social logic of its own. The market, in other words, was also a social institution.

Read More →
People of the 'Unruly' City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-1
News · 11 Sep 2026

People of the 'Unruly' City: Kolkata’s Hawker Movement, the State and the Politics of Livelihood : Part-1

This city is made as much by its pavements, open grounds, bustees, settlements beside railway lines, temporary markets, tea stalls, rickshaws, handcarts and the livelihoods of ordinary people as it is by its planned roads, flyovers, markets, houses, offices, parks, train routes and government buildings. What we so easily call ‘unruly’ or ‘messy’ has a deep social logic of its own. The market, in other words, was also a social institution.

Read More →