Kolkata

Sometimes you cannot help but show solidarity with the Indian people, for example when the issue is the launch of overseas supermarket chains.

At the world economic forum in Davos there was actually irritation among some of the drivers of the global economy: they criticized that India would not open its markets to foreign supermarket chains and put an initial halt to relevant plans. For me, having now lived in Kolkata for three weeks, these raised eyebrows now seem like typical western arrogance. India’s government is entirely right: this huge nation has no demand for Wal-Mart or Carrefour and also not for Aldi or Lidl.

On the contrary, clearing a path for them could have hugely fatal consequences as it would rob millions of people of their living, for the local supply is one of the things that truly works well in India (of course, on the condition that one has the money for daily amenities). “To pop out to the shops” is not a hollow phrase in India, but a description of fact. Almost everything that anyone could need is either in the direct proximity of one’s home or workplace. Wanting to drive to the shops in a car is seasoned with a dash of madness. First of all, you can hardly get anywhere in the constant traffic jams and secondly, in a city where over 23,000 people are crowded into one square kilometre, parking spaces are, as a matter of course, absolute rarities.

The local supply functions entirely differently here than in the western world. For example, at least 14 million people live in Kolkata (whereby I have my doubts about these figures for I do not believe that the poorest of the poor are ever really counted in the official statistics). How many little shops there are (some only taking up two square metres at the side of the road), not even my colleagues can say. It feels like it must be one million and if I assume that there are just as many “Aunt Emmas” or “Uncle Ashishs” as there are people living in Stuttgart, then my estimate is certainly on the safe side and I guarantee I have not exaggerated.

All of their livelihoods would be at risk if large western (or any foreign) corporations were given entry. Their fight for survival would be even tougher; many would be threatened with going directly from a passable subsistence to the slums.

Threat not only to merchants, but farmers, too

It would not be only them: the crofters and non-professional farmers who offer their products fresh from the next field, for example on the main road from the airport to the city, would also suffer a drop in sales, not to mention the tailors in their mini-workshops, the sweets sellers pushing their carts through the streets, the nut sellers who put together their special blends by hand on request, or the contemporaries who press fresh orange and lemon juice with their manually-operated cranks.

Don’t anyone tell me the small villages would be spared since no supermarkets would go there! It is astonishing that even at the end of the world (as one feels) there are still plenty of shops that ensure the supply. Now, if the fishers could no longer sell their catches from the Hugli or the sea to the markets or the merchants in Kolkata, if the small-scale farmers can no longer sell their rice in the city, then they would all slip entirely into poverty and they in turn could not buy anything from their neighbours.

It is a vicious circle that simply outrages me, especially since the same threat exists in other countries (such as Morocco). I can feel the aggression rising in me. “Is this preparation for the second colonization?” goes through my head. Indeed, India’s first subjugation began with a trading company: the British East India Company in the middle of the 18th century ... in Kolkata.