Calcutta will soon ban hand-pulled rickshaws. Is this a move to liberate the oppressed from their yoke, or just a clumsy attempt by the communists to eliminate an eyesore that is also a highly effective market based response to current transportation inefficiencies?
The Chief Minister claims his motives are humanitarian, and says that he will look after the interests of all those affected:
Mr Bhattacharya said: “We have taken a policy decision to take the hand-drawn rickshaw off the roads of Calcutta on humanitarian grounds. Nowhere else in the world does this practice exist and we think it should also cease to exist in Calcutta.”The chief minister said the authorities were thinking of alternative modes of transport so that the transition did not affect either the pullers or the riders. “This involves money and training. It will be about the end of this year when the rickshaws are finally gone,” he said. [BBC]
This will be no small order. Rickshaws have been around for a while and fill an important role in the city:
The hand-pulled rickshaw came from China in the 19th century. A recent study … put the number of hand-rickshaw pullers at 18,000 with more than 1,800 joining the pool every year. Many Calcuttans are uncertain whether they will be able to move around the city’s old lanes without the hand-pulled rickshaws – particularly during the monsoon. “When we have to wade in chest-deep water during rains, no other transport works but you can still find the hand-pulled rickshaws taking people from one place to another,” says Dipali Nath, a housewife in north Calcutta. [BBC]
Would cycle-rickshaws work easily well in the rain? I don’t know – I have no idea what the streets of Calcutta are like during the monsoon season. I am concerned about the rickshaw pullers themselves. As inhumane as this practice seems, there are many more odious forms of physical labor that involve far less independence.
Some trade unions are demanding adequate compensation and an alternate livelihood for all the pullers before their licences are cancelled and the mode of transport banned. [BBC]
Honestly, I suspect they will persist for a long time. Rickshaws might be removed from the main thoroughfares where they tarnish the city’s more modern image, but in the poor quarters they will probably continue plying their trade until they are no longer useful. I can’t see the state devoting the efforts necessary to implement a total ban, nor do I think this is the best use of their efforts. For example, I would rather that they cracked down hard on child labor.
Much as it makes me uneasy to see one man pulling another, I have to respect the fact that the pullers would probably rather be doing that job than breaking rocks into gravel or many other forms of manual labor available to them. Nor do I think that their lot is the worst in the city, so it’s not clear to me that it’s worth throwing a lot of resources into their retraining. I would rather find a market based solution that let them disappear gradually as better options became available. Make more micro-finance available to the poor so that they have more choices, but then respect most of the choices they make and use the state to ban only the most obviously exploitative practices.
Took a long time for them to feel humanitarian! Even the non-communist states did away with this a long…….. time ago.
werent the hand-pulled rickshaws banned sometime back? I remember reading about that in newspapers a few years back…or was it just a proposal then too?
as tough as it is to see someone toil like that to move another human being, I respect the fact that at least these people arent’ begging and are trying to make an honest wage so they can have some level of financial support. I don’t think it’s right to ban these ppl from their work unless serious retraining and adequate transition plans and money is put behind this effort. Which given the state of Indian corruption in politics, I’m highly skeptical of.
For example, I would rather that they cracked down hard on child labor.
this is a very tedious issue, which to us in developed nations seems barbaric. But at bschool we had a serious debate about this, and a lot of it depends on perspective I guess. Many families are too poor/uneducated to financially support the whole family, so putting children to work for many families is the only way to stay alive. It’s sad but it’s the truth. Another argument was that in the face of abject poverty, by restricting children from working/being productive, they have too much free time and thus are prime targets for gang/underworld related activity. Since many poor families cannot afford to educate their children, keeping these kids on teh street only gives them one way to turn to in order to break poverty, criminal behavior. many families pick one or 2 kids to educate and everyone else in the family works for that cause so that later those same kids can support the family. It’s a touchy subject and I’m not sure where I lie on it, but I do think that the issue isn’t so much child labor as it is educating families to not have kids they cannot afford.
ennis, i agree with your qualms about this–i think we have a lack of information here. it would help to find out whether rickshawwallahs are organized (in a real way–not a fatcat union kind of way) and, if so, what they’re saying about this. Absent that, it’s really hard to know whether this is a positive or negative development.
It makes me uneasy to see radical change like this coming from a government decision without knowing who or what provided the motivations and what they are (esp since they’ve recently started doing other “development” projects like big malls for wealthy people that displace poor people).
on the question of the flooding–in the few times I’ve been there for the monsoon, I’ve seen it up to the windows of an Ambassador and I’ve seen it with much better drainage.
The traditional communists (says BBC)finally see change!
I used to work on this professionally from a US-based NGO (union front) advocacy standpoint, and I agree with you that this is an immensely complicated issue that can’t be reduced to a simple “get rid of it” solution. I think the same kinds of hesitations that Ennis has about the crackdown on rickshaws ought to, unfortunately, apply to a government or foreign crackdown (or boycott) of child labor.
At the same time, I think if there were an indigenous and informed social movvement that called for such a thing, we should all get on its side and support it, because that, to me, would reflect a more honest way of going about thigns. Local knowledge and all.
The leader of the union has spoken against the proposed ban. It seems that the union is dominated by Biharis (not surprising, I guess), and isn’t controlled by the left front. In any case, the left front has broken unions previously that were under its own control (such as the casual hospital workers union, was was under the CITU banner). I wonder if they plan to ban the two man carts also. Or is the problem with people pulling people as opposed to pulling things. I hope they don’t re-introduce the cycle-rickshaws instead. Those were worse than rickshaws and a huge hazard on the road (even at 6 mph).
Would the Chief Minister be ok if the rickshaw wasn’t “hand-pulled” but cycle-powered? Would that be more humanitarian? Not clear from the quote.
In Pakistan, under Nawaz Sharif all richshaw drivers were given auto-rickshaws as Nawaz Sharif equated one man pulling another mans weight to slavery.
This from Dawn :
CYCLE-RICKSHAW: Justice Malik Farrukh Mahmood of the Lahore High Court (Bahawalpur bench) on Wednesday ordered the lifting of a ban on cycle-rickshaws. The order was issued on a writ petition of Arif Husain who had challenged the orders of former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif to ban the plying of cycle-rickshaws here.
The former prime minister had eliminated the cycle-rickshaws under a package by providing loans to the owners and drivers of cycle-rickshaws to purchase auto-rickshaws and repay loans in easy instalments. Since then, there was ban on plying of cycle-rickshaws, which was described as inhuman act.
In his judgement, the judge termed the ban a conflict with the articles 18 and 25 of the constitution. He further mentioned that presently cycle-rickshaws were also plying in one of the states of the US and that there was no legal justification for its ban.
I wonder what about the status of rickshaws in Pakistan these days.
I see hand drawn rickshaws right here in downtown Toronto. Depends how you look at it, it’s considered a tourist attraction here.
May be unionise the rickshaw association, increase charges sharply, dress the rickshaw wala in an ethnic attire, spruce up the ride and run them as a novelty!
My bong friend won’t like this one at all. 😉
Al, I dont think its slavery as the people choose to do that, however I agree the part of giving them an autorikshaw, its a humane thing to do.
While we are at it, why not give them CNG autorickshaws? It would help the Kolkata air like it did in Delhi.
I heard of some American who took cycle rickshaws to States to provide an interesting ‘workout’. Don’t know how true that is.
A Sai Baba devotee, of all people, brought the Bug Bug cycle rickshaws to London. I had this stupid idea of earning some pocket money in my first two years at uni by cycling around at night as I never attended lectures in the day anyway. I tried it out for a few hours with one of the guys from the company keeping an eye on me from his bike. It sure is tiring work – specially fat American tourists! Didn’t take the job though. In terms of a workout, I may have got fit, but I think I’d’ve got a lung-full of smog too.
Toronto has handpulled rickshaws during the summer when the weather allows it. The government encourages it as part of the green tourism initiative or something.
I don’t get why it’s seen as such a bad thing in India.
Rickshaws in Calcutta
The Left Front Govt of West Bengal wants to get rid of the Image – of man’s inhumanity to man – rather than the reality of an inhumane society with inhuman living conditions for the labouring poor.
There is actually no humanity in the govt, for that would have meant working out a proper rehabilitation programme for the rickshaw pullers. Inhumanity, and vanity.
Creating an image, or dispelling an image versus actually erasing inhumanity.
Banning rickshaws without successfully arranging alternatives for the pullers means actually inflicting cruelty on the pullers, in the name of creating an image of humanity.
Hand and cycle rickshaws are appearing in cities in Europe today. One can visualise a regulated trade in Calcutta, where the puller derives a fair and humane wage.
There are also other forms of inhumanity – domestic servitude, working conditions in the unorganised sector, living conditions of the urban poor in slums and shanties. On none of these is the govt doing anything.
The govt is also displaying its parochialism – the pullers are predominantly Bihari. They are insecure, unorganised. Hence they are an easy target. Such biases can also be seen in Howrah station, in the conflict between the red-shirt (licensed, Bihari) porters and the (unlicensed, Bengali) blue-shirt porters.
Rickshaw pulling does not relly disrupt traffic. It is a meaningful mode of transport in particular localities, for particular functions, for both passengers and freight.
The ergonomics of the hand rickshaw are superior to that of the cycle rickshaw (the model used in Calcutta).
Cycle rickshaws are more of a nuisance, their conditions are pathetic, the plight of the cycle rickshaw puller is worse than that of the hand-puller, they represent a greater inhumanity, far greater numbers of cycle rickshaws exist. The health profile of the typical cycle-puller is far worse than that of the hand-puller. Though they are also periodically harassed in various localities, yet they are more organised than the hand-pullers.
Legality and illegality – what are all the illegal activities flourishing in the city organised by political cadres? Flagrant violation of law is found in every sphere of life. Like the bus-owners now, threatening public disruption if efforts are made to implement pollution control norms!
The auto-rickshaw is entirely unwholesome and undesirable. Is a prime instrument of air and noise pollution. They are a menace to traffic. Unsafe, severely harmful. Part of a noxious lumpen under-life of the city. Most autos are illegal. Permits are given to party cadres. Beneficiaries have let out the vehicle to a driver, and often the actual driver is twice-removed from the owner, for whom the auto has become a means to derive an income from othersÂ’ labour. No civilised city should have auto-rickshaws.
The pretext of freeing roads for cars – raises the question of how long the unchecked growth of private cars will continue. There has to be a long-term plan, both of expanding roads, but also limiting and controlling private cars – as London has successfully demonstrated.
Traffic flow is severely impeded by hawking, markets and shops on pavements and roadsides, which are organised and profited from by political cadres.
Public transport is in a shambles.
When will the people of Calcutta rise up against their ugly rulers?