Indian traders feel at home in Pasar Baru

Indian traders feel at home in Pasar Baru

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A sixty-year-old man of Indian descent sat behind the counter of
his textile store in Pasar Baru, a 184-year-old market complex in
Central Jakarta, waiting for customers to pay for the cloth they
had selected.

"Actually, I don't like it if people see me as an Indian. I'm
an Indonesian. I've been living in Indonesia since I was 11 years
old, and now Jakarta is my home," said Dedy, who always greets
his customers with a smile and often offers generous discounts.

Dedy, who doesn't like to be called Pak, or Sir, is one of
the hundreds of people of Indian descent making ends meet as
textile traders in Pasar Baru.

Most of the ethnic Indians living in Jakarta work as tailors,
or run textile, curtain, or sports shops. These entrepreneurs,
mostly originating from Sind and Punjab, North India, are locally
perceived as being more successful at business than other
immigrants.

Since the end of World War II and after Pakistan and India
split in 1947, many Indian people emigrated to Jakarta to find a
new and better life. In 2002, there were around 2,000 Indian
families registered as living in Jakarta, with most of them
residing in the central part of the city, especially in the Pasar
Baru and Pintu Air areas.

"I came to Jakarta from Bombay with my father in 1948. When I
was 17 years old, I began working to save up the money to open a
business ... and I eventually succeeded in opening this store. It
has been 20 years now," said Dedy, the owner of Maharadja Store
in Pasar Baru.

The Indian traders tend to give their stores in Pasar Baru
Hindu or Indian names, such as Bombay or Maharaja. Even though
most of the Indians run accessories, textile and sports equipment
stores, there are also some traders of Javanese, Chinese, and
Arab descent running the same sorts of businesses.

Dedy said he had experienced various ups and downs selling
textiles in Pasar Baru. He explained that even though the area
was centrally located, he often encountered problems, such as a
general lack of security for traders and customers alike and the
poor sewage system around the market.

"We pay taxes regularly to the Pasar Baru management and the
government. We have long been demanding better security both for
our own and our customers' safety. But robberies are still a
frequent occurrence and traders are forced to pay protection
money to thugs, said Dedi. "Not to mention the terrible sewage
system, which results in floods every time it rains."

"I used to serve around one hundred customers every day
between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. But lately, I have only been getting
between seven and eight customers a day," explained Dedy, who
thinks that the tsunami disaster in Aceh and North Sumatra is the
main reason for the fall off in business.

Pritpal Singh, who is usually called Priti, who runs a sports
store and is also active in Sikh religious activities, says the
Pasar Baru traders have become used to the lack of security.
"It's unavoidable. It could happen anywhere," he said.

Priti explained that Pasar Baru had always been famous
throughout Indonesia as one of the oldest markets for textiles,
curtains and sports equipment.

"I think we have created an image among the public that Pasar
Baru is a kind of little India," joked Priti. "We are still here
as traders because of the responsibility we owe to our parents to
carry on the family businesses."

Priti, who first came to Jakarta in the 1980s to seek his
fortune as a trader, said that one of the reasons that motivated
the Indians to keep working as traders in Pasar Baru was the wide
business network they enjoyed.

Maharani, an widow of Indian descent who supports her family by
selling ethnic Indian textiles and accessories in Pasar Baru,
said that it filled her with joy to provide her community with
the sort of goods that reminded them of home. (001)