No more chaat....

Hygiene and cleanliness can and must be enforced without closing down the hawkers business or roadside kitchens.
Even the gastronomically least aware would know that 'Chaat' and many other spicy Indian savouries, ranging from Samosas and 'Chole-Kulche' to Kababs, constitute Delhi's food USP. Later day additions to the menu of cosmopolitan Delhi are the local versions of the South Indian 'Masala Dosa' and 'Idli'. Look more broadly, and it will be found that street food is the sole means of eating breakfast or lunch for a vast number of people in the capital, and many other big cities of long distances. Almost all the street food is cooked and sold on the roadside often amidst dirt and dust.
That has been a tradition, part of Delhi's cultural scene for as long as anyone can remember. Now a Supreme Court order, said to be based on inputs from the two main civic bodies of the capital, the notoriously corrupt and inefficient Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the VIP-oriented New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC), is about to change all that with hawkers being asked to do all the cooking in their homes and sell their fare in sealed packets.
There are enough sceptics who believe that the court order will not see the demise of the roadside kitchens. Their fear is that it will only prove to be a bonus for the corrupt civic and police officials who take hefty bribes from food vendors in the name of 'hygiene' checks. If implemented in letter and spirit, the court order stands to affect the livelihood of about 300,000 hawkers, which may roughly mean more misery, if not penury, for at least 1,500,000 people, assuming that a hawker supports on an average a five-member family.
Surprisingly, the protests have been muted: no demonstrations and bandh calls by the BJP, the self-appointed custodian of the 'plight' of Delhiites. Oh, but they concentrate only on rich house owners and richer traders to help them disfigure Delhi as much as possible to save it from becoming 'a world-class city'. The pro-proletariat comrades cannot take up the hawkers cause either because in opposing economic reforms they are fighting a life and death battle against the government they support in Delhi. It is a different matter they are converting their impregnable fort of West Bengal and even Tripura into a capitalist heaven.
One NGO did express its displeasure, wisely not on the streets lest it be bound by a commitment to help the hawkers. Its chairperson was quoted as saying that 'the judges don't have a clue', referring to the two-member bench of the court that passed the ban order. There are millions of homes in India, including those of the poor, where a meal, any food, has to be warm to be consumed. Call it freshly cooked meals if you will. But Chaat and snacks do not constitute a meal as much, one might say. Granted.
Also agreed that the court's order banning the sale of snacks on the roadside looks good from the hygiene-and health-point of view. But don't these considerations override the economic issue, namely the survival of the poor when his or her source of livelihood is under threat. A more serious regard for health will actually require a ban on the traditional way of cooking most Indian food, which relies too much on unhealthy fats!
Most hawkers live in conditions where a proper house itself will be considered a luxury, much less a well-appointed kitchen. So where will these hawkers cook the stuff that they are supposed to pack and then trudge long distance to sell the 'pre-cooked' food to the hungry souls awaiting their arrival near their place of work?
Under the open skies, perhaps; may be in closed, congested and dirty enclosures.
Who cares? And who has really cared that the food or snacks cooked in proper kitchens, such as the ones that restaurants and hotels are supposed to have, are hygienically prepared?
True, the municipal health inspectors are supposed to carry out periodic checks in the restaurants and hotels to ensure that prescribed hygiene standards are observed. Will anyone take a bet that this duty is honestly performed? Perhaps five-star hotels do care for hygiene in deference to their rich clientele, but it is doubtful if the kitchens in the majority of restaurants and eating-houses present an agreeable, hygienic sight.
The ban on hawkers cooking on the roadside seems to be linked to the feverish enthusiasm to make Delhi a 'world class' city by 2010 because it is part of the move to keep the streets clean and free of congestion. The sale of many non-eatables on the streets is also being prohibited. It, however, passes comprehension how a ban on the sale of 'electronic' or 'expensive' items on the streets will help Delhi attain an urban Nirvana by becoming a world class city, especially when the denizens of Delhi are known for non-world class habits like urinating and spitting on the streets. If it is true that the issue of street kitchen is related to elevating the status of Delhi, at present moving towards a 'world class slum', then nothing could be more ridiculous.
Hygiene and cleanliness can and must be enforced without closing down the hawkers business or roadside kitchens. Nobody will oppose a move that ensures a cleaner environment. There are cities in other parts of Asia where freshly cooked street food is sold in cleaner ambience. The first step in that direction will be an honest enforcement agency.
That can only be a dream in Delhi in the prevailing milieu. So chances are that the Delhiites may still be eating their 'Gol Gappas', 'Chaat', Jalebis and Kababs on the streets in the all important year of 2010 when thousands of athletes will descend on the capital to enliven the scene for the Commonwealth Games, not a big ticket sports events in the world.