| Manna from Anna |
As Anna Hazare’s protest goes viral, so do the businesses that have sprung up around it
Sangeeta Sisodia and Udita Aswal have never done business. In fact, they have never stepped out of home to work. But, on August 23, after sending their children to school and their husbands, who are drivers, to work, the two women in their mid-30s head to Ramlila Maidan in Delhi where Anna Hazare is on fast. There are thousands at the ground to support Anna and nationalist fervour rules strong. Neighbours have told the two young women that the protest offers good opportunities to make some quick money. Sisodia and Aswal are thus loaded with ‘I am Anna’ caps and wristbands and flags in saffron, green and white like the Tricolour. The risk (they haven’t told the husbands) and the effort (they’ve come from the fringes of the city) have been well worth it and their stock sells briskly. They might not know the Constitutionality of what Hazare is doing, but they have the instinct of a punter. “We will be back tomorrow,” says Sisodia.
| |||||
Because of people like Sisodia, Aswal and Hasan, and not just regular vendors, a storm of sorts has been blowing through Sadar Bazaar in Delhi, Asia’s largest wholesale market. At any time of the year, this market bristles with shoppers, vendors, traders, middlemen and karigars (craftsmen). Traders here are used to chaos and are comfortable with huge orders that come to them from all over the country. “But nothing compares to the aandhi (storm) called Anna which has hit us,” says Mohammed Ismail Ansari, owner of AR China Toys, holding up a small electronic Tricolour badge which glows in the dark. “I ordered several packets of these Chinese badges for Independence Day. Not one of them sold,” he says. “But ever since Anna began his fast, these have been a sellout.” Young boys, he says, buy these flags for Rs 5 from him and sell them for Rs 15 outside Ramlila Maidan. “If I write Anna on this cheap Chinese pen,” adds the next shopkeeper pulling a pen out of his pocket, “this too will disappear from the shops.” The buyers include everybody — students, housewives, professionals, the young and the old — because “wearing an Anna T-shirt or cap is the easiest way to show support,” explains Delhi University student Pooja Rawat.
If there is a high-profile cricket match, about 150 vendors show up outside the stadium with the Tricolour. Around Ramlila Maidan, reckon Sadar Bazaar traders, at least 5,000 are at work round the clock. Nobody has a clue how much stock these vendors have lifted since Anna moved to Ramlila Maidan on August 19 — life is too busy for the traders to calculate the sales and profits. At Dayal Bhai Jhandewala’s shop, it’s with some effort that one manages to reach the counter where Anna badges, masks, caps, wristbands and headbands are placed. There are simply too many people squeezed into the little shop, each asking for an “Anna”. Outside the shop, a young man says to his friend, “Come, let’s buy an Anna. Should I get two?” “No; get four,” the friend replies. The men walk away with four ‘I am Anna’ Gandhi caps. “What can I say; you can see it for yourself,” says Dayal Bhai who deals in “all kinds of election publicity material”. Sadar Bazaar traders make 5-7 per cent profit on the merchandise — the margin may be low but the volumes are huge.
* * *
Dayal Bhai knows this is no election and knows that he cannot put too much at stake when business depends on a protest, even one as powerful as Anna’s. So, despite the happy business opportunity which the unhappy standoff between the government and Team Anna has created, Dayal Bhai keeps his Anna inventory limited. “I buy only one day’s stock,” he says. “The risk is too high. If the protest is called off, all my stuff will go waste.” Even in emotional times, a businessman has to be pragmatic.
But as long as the going is good, everybody is going for it. Anna might cringe but shopkeepers don’t hesitate to call it a “loot” which begins the moment the stock comes into the market from the dozens of little workshops in nearby, and even more congested, Nabi Karim every morning and evening. Gandhi caps made of cheap tissue paper-like Chinese non-woven material and T-shirts are brought in bundles on rickshaws or in gunny bags carried on the head. And then it’s a free for all. By eight in the morning, vendors like Mukesh of the Banjara tribe start arriving at the shops to buy the merchandise and sell it near Ramlila Maidan for 100 per cent profit, even more. By 2 pm, it’s already Mukesh’s third trip to the shop. “I’ve been selling 700 to 800 caps per day for a profit of Rs 5 to 10,” says he. That’s a neat Rs 3,500 to Rs 8,000 in his pocket in one day — many times what he would otherwise earn as daily wages.
Ashok Bhai Rakhi Wala, who started out in the rakhi business but soon switched over to the more profitable trade of supplying election material, finds his hands full. Ali Jaan, who makes the caps and T-shirts for him, says such has been the demand that he hasn’t slept in days. “This, in the days when we are keeping the Ramadan fast,” he says. He, like the others, has finally outsourced work to women in the slums of Seelampur, Bhajanpura, Sonia Vihar and Nand Nagri. Ashok Bhai’s brother, Anil Gupta aka Anil Bhai Rakhi Wala, says: “The number of karigars too has shot up from 500 to 5,000 within days.” Some of these karigars have begun to bypass the traders and go directly to Ramlila Maidan to sell their produce.
Selling his goods on the pavement to the protest venue, Mohammad Sohrab says that the unending demand and inadequate supply has poshed prices up. “A cap that was available for Rs 3 at Sadar now costs me Rs 7.” He has been so busy that he has had to break his Ramadan fast twice. Babbu, from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, is at Ramlila Maidan selling flags till one at night. By then, candles also come into the picture. The most common symbol of protest by the urban middle-class, the candle, however, hasn’t caught the imagination of the masses the way the ‘I am Anna’ cap has. Even so, traders at Delhi’s wholesale candle market, Khari Baoli, say sales are up 10 to 20 per cent. “While about a thousand candles are sold during smaller protests, this time round sale has touched 50,000,” says the staff at Parkash Candles.
* * *
Away from the protest site, removed from the sloganeering masses, other businesses are also flourishing in the name of Anna. Tantra has launched a line of anti-corruption T-shirts (Rs 449) with slogans such as “There is no corruption in India. (I was paid to say this).” Its creative head, Ranjiv Ramchandani, says: “Tantra is about India on a T-shirt. Hence the demand for this merchandise will keep growing as the cause gains momentum.” As of August 24, Tantra’s Anna T-shirts in most stores across the country are nearly sold out.
Online T-shirt store XTEES has brought out its own range of Anna T-shirts (Rs 149) after it received an unprecedented number of requests to do so. Says its CEO, Manoj Vijayakumar: “It took us a couple of hours to put together this range. We add new slogans every alternate day.” An inhouse creative team is on the job to design more, Vijayakumar says. “A lot of companies and retailers have bought these in bulk. Orders are coming from Jammu to Thiruvananthapuram; Delhi and Mumbai are giving the biggest share.” Impulse Marketing, maker of promotional merchandise for corporations, is also selling 30-odd T-shirts at Ramlila Maidan everyday “on a no-profit no-loss basis,” says its owner, Manoj Jha.
The business around Anna started even before his fast. Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, Alaknanda and Greater Kailash markets were flooded with Anna rakhis which sold for Rs 10-15 each. In Mumbai, Anna was seen on the T-shirts designed by different dahi-handi mandals. In Baroda, local shops are gaining from 22-year-old social activist’s Jay Gandhi’s decision to distribute Anna merchandise across India. Gandhi has started a fund-raising campaign on Facebook called ‘Anna Hazare Merchandize’ to sustain this.
SMS traffic too has soared since the protest started. On August 23, an SMS asking everybody to protest outside the houses of MPs and ministers was sent to over 56 million mobile users through Site2Sms.Com, a free SMS site. “According to our SMS traffic analysis, every day over 640,000 SMSes related to Anna are sent through our site,” says its CEO, Nitin Lohchad. “The greater the traffic, the better it is for us, both in terms of brand building and revenue generation.” Viewership of news channels feasting on the Anna protest has almost doubled — the pinch is being felt by the entertainment channels.
In the studios of digital media production house Spectralindia in East Delhi, a team of musicians, singers, sound engineers and programmers has put together a song dedicated to Anna. Its video was launched on YouTube on August 24, “in less than three days from the time we thought of it,” says singer, composer and lyricist Mukesh Singh. “We have given it for free to mobile companies that want to use it as ringtone,” adds Spectralindia owner B C Yesudas. While for Singh and Yesudas, this is not about money, they realise that the mobile companies will profit from the song. Given the mood, it’s bound to click. This is, after all, the flavour of the season — and its name is Anna.