VIDEO: Ending Police Harassment of Small Business in India

Our friends at the Atlas Network have an excellent new video out about legal reform in India that is helping small businesspeople stand up to corrupt government officials and make an honest living.

Thanks to years of work by Centre for Civil Society, an Atlas Network partner in India, a law protecting street vendors like Dinesh [Kumar Dixit] has made it easier for him to make a living without fear of harassment. And today, Dinesh is even part of a committee that oversees matters affecting sidewalk traders, footpath dukanders—whatever local name is used for mobile street businesses. The law is on his side. “I feel empowered,” Dinesh says. “And now with the support of other vendors, I too have a voice in the system.”

This video, and the progress it documents, reminds me of the 2015 documentary “India Awakes,” which I blogged about in 2017 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of India’s independence. In it, host Johan Nordberg profiles three important reform efforts in India that are helping people earn a living and control their own fate, including reform of the rules governing street vendors, as documented above in “Doing Development Differently.”