Khan Market Gang and its discontents

Over the weekend, the prime minister sought to distance himself from a “gang” that hangs out at a signature location in India’s capital city. What makes him so uncomfortable about this grouping, which he assumes is homogenous and uniformly opposed to him? The interview in The Indian Express suggests that he thinks all habitues of Khan Market are upscale, liberal westernised elites who disdain him and his brand of politics. 

Since most of the people who visit an area that figures among the world’s 25 most expensive retail real estate are busy shopping for upscale brands and products or eating or drinking at elite restaurants, it is safe to say any focus on politics is minimal here. No Khan Market eatery remotely resembles College Street’s famous Coffee House or a Left Bank Café where subversion and intellectual discourse were once almost mandatory activities. If the prime minister has concluded that Khan Market’s clientele are not the kind who “made” him and are unlikely to vote for him, we must assume that Mr Modi or his party colleagues must have conducted a detailed recce to formulate those views.

Still, it is a pity Mr Modi chooses to regard this once-charming market as a blank cheque in his vote bank. Had he applied his characteristic verve to Khan Market as he did to his home state of Gujarat, he would have earned, without question, some robust support from these so-called liberal elites. 

The market, once a soporific outpost for post-partition settlers from the north-west frontier, has outstripped Connaught Place as the city’s toniest hang-out joint (ironically, this 21st century status would have horrified Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, the austere brother of the Frontier Gandhi, for whom the market is named). 

That dubious prestige, the twin result of a handy location and the explosion of upscale commerce to cater to a post-liberalisation cosmopolitan crowd, has come at a cost. Surrounded by a constant din and lured by astronomical rents, residents have chosen to vacate their homes here and lease them to eateries and shops. The result is a series of new and exciting establishments to visit, sure, but the downsides have multiplied exponentially too. 

Today, a visitor will be struck by the traffic jams that have become a permanent fixture on the lanes around Khan Market as cars draw up to disgorge their passengers on to entrances that are choked with cars. Touchingly, the market’s administrative association chose to solve the parking shortage by ending the free parking with a paid service, an expedient that is unlikely to discourage Khan Market gang members. 

More serious is the fire hazard that Khan Market has become. Most of those enchanting residences with their narrow wooden stairways and wide window bays are chic restaurants today. Few of them appear to have fire escapes or follow any modicum of fire safety standards. The market, like most of Lutyens’ Delhi (another of Mr Modi’s pet peeves), comes under the purview of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), which has a majority of central government representatives on its administrative council. This body has been markedly desultory in enforcing fire safety norms here, a circumstance that caused a Supreme Court bench to make an acid comment about the rich being exempted from law enforcement.    

What’s all this got to do with Mr Modi? Simply this. The market is about 3.5 km from his official residence. He has been energetic about renaming roads in the vicinity to suit his political priorities. It lies well within his powers to direct NMDC to solve these basic traffic problems and issues impacting citizens’ safety — after all,  rich people aren’t the only ones who will die if even one place in Khan Market catches fire; many less affluent service providers will perish too, chowkidars included.

Perhaps the next time Mr Modi visits his good friend Xi Jinping in China, he should request a visit to Xintiandi. This shopping and entertainment district can be loosely described as Shanghai’s Khan Market. Like Khan Market, it boasts some of the priciest real estate in China and the most fashionable commercial establishments. But the resemblance ends there. Bustling with shops and restaurants in narrow historical alleyways, Xintiadi owes its existence to a government-directed urban renewal project that includes the restoration of some of the old houses (a museum tracing the history of Communist Party is located in one of these). Unlike Khan Market, where residents exited by choice, many families were displaced for the Xintiandi renewal project. It is, notably, a car-free zone so visitors can wander freely without being assaulted by car horns, the curses of irate drivers and exhaust fumes.   

Xintiandi, in short, is an unabashedly affluent area, a showcase of China’s post-Mao ideology of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics. It doesn’t take much to make Khan Market India’s Xintiandi, just a little bit of imaginative urban planning. Certainly, none of it is beyond the capabilities of a prime minister who has managed to alter in just five years centuries of lethargy with an awesome clean-up of Varanasi. At any rate, he would feel less alienated from the Khan Market Gang if he chose to work his transformative magic there.