Members of trade associations, organizations of retail traders, hawkers’ and vendors’ organizations, organizations of cooperative retail stores, kisan sabhas, trade unions, NGOs and other mass organizations met at a National Convention to Resist Corporate Hijack of Retail Business, held on April 22 in New Delhi. Organised by the Joint Action Committee to Protect Retail Trade and Livelihoods, at the initiative of India FDI Watch, the aim of the convention was to create awareness among people of the disastrous consequences of the take-over of retail trade by big foreign and Indian monopoly capitalist companies such as Bharti-Walmart, Reliance, AV Birla group, Future group, etc. and to take forward the struggle of all sections of the society against the government which is facilitating this corporate take-over of the retail business.

The proceedings began with the screening of a documentary film ‘Astitva’, which movingly depicted the painful plight of tens of millions of small shopkeepers and traders, who are losing their only means of livelihood due to increasing take-over of retail trade by the big monopoly houses and the setting up of huge shopping malls all over the city of Mumbai. It powerfully smashed the false propaganda of the government and its agencies, that the corporate houses were here to provide jobs, and exposed how many more millions of livelihoods were going to be lost as compared to the few jobs that these companies would provide.

Speakers at the convention included Dr. Vandana Shiva of Navdanya, Praveen Khandelwal of the Confederation of All India Traders, Tapan Sen of CITU, Nurul Huda of the All India Kisan Sabha, Shaktiman Ghosh of the All India Hawkers Federation, Sucharita of Lok Raj Sangathan, Vinod Shetty of India FDI Watch, Wade Rathke, chief organizer of ACORN, an organization that is spearheading the movement against corporate take-over of retail trade in the US and several others.

Speakers pointed out that in India small shopkeepers make up 97% of the retail business and this section will be severely affected with the current drive towards increasing corporate investment in the retail sector. 60-65% of this is likely to be for food and grocery retail, which implies direct corporate investment in agriculture. This will only aggravate the process of loss of land and livelihood in the agriculture sector. The state will have no accountability in terms of providing remunerative prices or guaranteed markets to the peasants for their produce; the big Indian and foreign monopoly companies will buy directly from the peasants on terms and conditions dictated by maximum profit for the companies. Speakers drew attention to the alarming rate at which corporate retail chains are entering and expanding into the retail market, hoping to achieve in India in 10 years, what it has taken them 25-30 years to achieve in other countries. Questions were raised about the huge subsidies and tax sops that the government is giving to the monopoly companies to facilitate this process. The impact of this on the culture and lifestyle of our society was also discussed. The need to carry forward the struggle on the basis of the unity and strength of all the fighting people and not rely on any of the parliamentary political parties was highlighted by the speaker of Lok Raj Sangathan.

A resolution was adopted at the Convention, opposing the government encouraging and facilitating large-scale Indian and foreign corporate retailing and the back-door entry of multinational corporations through the wholesale ‘cash and carry’ route. A charter of demands was also passed, calling on the government to withdraw the concessions being given to the Indian and foreign multinationals for investing in the retail business and asking for a clear-cut national policy for hawkers and small shopkeepers, to protect the livelihood of millions of households from the predatory designs of the multinationals such as Bharti-Walmart and Reliance entering the retail sector. Organisations participating in the Convention adopted an action plan aimed at carrying forward the struggle to prevent corporate take-over of the retail business and protecting the livelihood of small shopkeepers, traders, hawkers and vendors as well as peasants.