Haat to Wal-Mart

On July 11, 2012, I filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi high court on behalf of Navdanya, calling on the court to investigate whether Wal-Mart was making an indirect entry into India’s retail sector through Bharti Enterprises. The court has served notices to the corporations and the government.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is not permitted in multi-brand retailing in India. The ministry of commerce and industry, through the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), issued consolidated policy and regulation guidelines for FDI which are contained in the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema) and RBI regulations, which prohibit foreign multi-brand retail chains from entering India and indicate grounds for violation of the rules.
Wal-Mart, which has emerged as one of the largest corporations in the world, is not just the largest retailer in the world, but also the world’s biggest private employer with over two million employees. The family-run business, which was founded in 1962, is today the world’s biggest grocery seller. From $30,000 in 1962, Wal-Mart’s earnings have touched $15.8 billion in 2012. It is the largest retailer in the US, Mexico and Canada and the second-largest grocery seller in the UK.
Wal-Mart operates under 69 different banners in 27 countries. Wherever Wal-Mart enters, it destroys the local economy, ecology and democracy. This is why we filed the PIL. For the sake of the people of India and the world, it is important to protect livelihoods and democracy. But for Wal-Mart and the governments of the US and India, it seems that Wal-Mart’s profits come before people and democracy.
Wal-Mart has been trying to enter India since 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agriculture agreement with the then US President George W. Bush, committing to open up India’s seed market to Monsanto, grain market to US agribusiness and retail market to Wal-Mart.
Letting multi-brand retail giants like Wal-Mart to directly or indirectly penetrate into the Indian retail sector is violative of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution, as well as the Directive Principles of State Policy listed under Articles 38(1) and (2) and 39(a) and (c) which direct the state to ensure the welfare of the people and strive to minimise inequalities in income.
Though protests and political opposition have prevented WalMart’s entry into India’s retail sector, in 2007, it got a backdoor entry for wholesale through a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises. Bharti Walmart stores go by the names of Easyday and Best Price Modern Wholesale.
In 2011, the Cabinet decided to allow 51 per cent FDI in retail. After considerable opposition, the decision was rolled back. The government, however, continues to announce its commitment to promoting FDI in retail — codeword for the “Walmartisation” of the Indian economy.
Even after a change in government in the US, the administration and business interests have continued to push for Wal-Mart. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited Kolkata in May 6, 2012 to meet chief minister Mamata Banerjee, since Ms Banerjee had blocked the government’s attempt to open up the retail sector to Wal-Mart in 2011.
Wal-Mart is being presented by the Indian government as the saviour of farmers, small retails and workers. Yet the record clearly shows that Wal-Mart’s “superprofits” come from destroying small farmers, displacing small retailers and exploiting workers.
Hypermarkets displace diversity, quality, nutrition and taste and replace it with uniformity, quantity and appearance. They are also responsible for 50 per cent of the food wasted globally. As Tobias Reichart reports, “to ensure timely delivery to numerous retail outlets, companies like Wal-Mart prefer to buy large amounts to products meeting uniform standards from a limited number of supplies.” Big retail goes hand in hand with big agriculture. There is no place for small farmers in a Wal-Mart world.
“Walmartisation” of Indian agriculture will create more poverty for our people. It will also leave India poorer as a culture and civilisation, in which the real free trade takes place face-to-face on our streets and in our haats and bazaars. Box stores and hypermarkets will rob India of her diversity and decentralised economy, which is the source of our resilience and real wealth of the people.
In a newspaper article titled Walmart’s vision of India, Raj Jain, president, emerging markets, Wal-Mart, has stated: “One key reason for Wal-Mart’s success is localisation. We carry local products from local suppliers that appeal to local tastes, needs and fashions.”
If Wal-Mart was our local neighbourhood store, carrying only locally produced items, it would be different in every region of every country and not be a “supercentre”. A typical Walmart store sells 60,000 different items; a supercentre sells 120,000 items. About 80 per cent of these are sourced from 6,000 factories in China. Wal-Mart, one of the biggest beneficiaries of corporate-led globalisation, has made communities dependent on countries thousands of miles away for everyday items — including the food we eat and the clothes we wear.
Workers in China’s Guangdong province work for 13 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, with 20-hour shifts during peak season. Even though the minimum wage in China is as low as 31 cents an hour, these production workers are paid 13 cents an hour. As Sherrie Ford, a factory owner has stated: “Every time you see the Walmart smiley face, whistling and knocking down the prices, somewhere there is a factory worker being kicked in the stomach.”
At a time when movements like Navdanya and Slow Food are growing worldwide to promote and protect local food cultures and economies, when the West is recognising that the Wal-Mart model degrades food, culture and employment, and farmers’ markets are growing everywhere, the Government of India seems determined to destroy the largest and richest “bazaar” culture in the world while using it to advertise “Incredible India”.
We need to protect our agriculture, food cultures and livelihoods from the invasion of supermarket chains. “Free trade” for Wal-Mart is the end of freedom for our farmers, hawkers and vendors who constitute a population of more than 800 million in India.
Citizens must take the lead in shaping societies that protect the earth, give work to all hands and enrich our communities and societies. “Our world is not for sale” — the slogan of activists and social movements worldwide fighting the current model of corporate globalisation embodied in global trading system — must move to every farm and every street in every society because our freedoms and our very lives are at stake.

The writer is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust