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Did you know that the ‘hand-pulled rickshaw’ was designed in the year 1870, and its invention is credited to three different men---Jonathan Gable, an American missionary , Ahika Daisuki, and an out-of-work samurai Yusuke Tzumi? A light wooden cart with large wheels probably an advance over the earlier palanquins, the rickshaw became a staple sight in regions under colonial rule. The first of these appeared in Shimla under the British Raj in 1880.

It was in 1914 that the hand-pulled rickshaws rolled into Kolkata manned by Chinese pullers---now replaced by Bihari migrants on the busy city streets. Best-selling authors, Dominique LaPierre and Larry Collins in their masterpiece City of Joy provide a heart-rending litany of the struggle for mere survival of these, almost literally ‘beasts of burden’. The Making of the Mahatma, a 1995 Shyam Benegal film, showcases the tribulations of such rickshaw pullers in South Africa.

Now the question: what warrants an article on a phenomenon long forgotten as part of a city’s culture? Does the fact that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya announced a ban on these demeaning and degrading means of livelihood solve the problem? It must, in my view, be a cause for concern for anyone writing about or studying development, the problems of large urban centres, the unchecked growth of urban population and its impact on the environment. After all, the aura of Kolkata as an old junkyard of colonial ruins -- such as the good old Ambassadors that have been taken off the roads a while back -- is fast giving way to one of a gizmo-driven, fast-moving metropolis!

Population Council researcher Martin Brockerhoff and Ellen Brennan of the United Nations Population Division in a study (1997) indicated that cities that grow faster experience quick decline. This occurs mainly due to the inability of these cities to provide basic goods and services to the overwhelming population. The hand-pulled rickshaws in Kolkata -- the only place on the planet to allow the trade for as long as today -- stand testimony to this fact.

The estimated 25 000 ‘human horses’ of the city -- an enduring symbol of our colonial past -- are only now on the way to obscurity. The ban, a long awaited one in fact, comes as a respite for the many organizations crusading for the complete ouster of the practice from an emerging megacity. It is not only the fact that these men carry other human beings for earning a few rupees, in the process they lend their bodies to unnatural forms of exploitation. Kolkata -- a city of 14 million and growing -- spews enough toxic gas and pollutants to choke the lungs of these rickshaw pullers who compete with buses, trams, cars, and scooters for their place on the streets.

The rickshaw -- an Anglicized corruption of the Chinese term ‘jin-riki-sha’ meaning human carts -- have often been bandied about as the most environment friendly alternative to fuel-driven vehicles. What skips everyone’s attention is the fact that newer and more efficient alternatives could be found to replace these medieval props---a grim reminder of the ways of the Raj. The chief minister plans to bring in cycle-rickshaws or motorized auto-rickshaws in place of the hand-pulled variant. Along with the uneasy inequity of man pulling man, these rickshaws today, deserve a place in the Calcutta Museum, not on the roads.

Environment savvy fuels such as CNG (compressed natural gas) with other wiser methods of reducing pollution are the norm in most cities the size of Kolkata. For over three decades, the city of Freiburg im Breisgau -- the regional capital of one of Germany’s most popular tourist destinations and one of the country’s fastest growing major cities -- has pursued an eco-friendly urban development policy in which transport plays an important role.

The ‘global transport concept’ -- with a transport infrastructure that is friendly to people, the environment, and the city -- is intended as an integral part of the development of the city, which now has 202 000 inhabitants. One of the key elements of the transport concept is the use of bicycles, which increased from 15% to 26% between 1982 and 1999. Similar strategies could be drawn up for Kolkata, now that the phased withdrawal of hand-pulled rickshaws is on the anvil.

However, the trepidation of the Calcutta Rickshaw Chalak Panchayat and the pullers themselves is justified considering the usual pace at which alternative livelihoods are provided in most parts of India. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s decision to clamp down on this downtrodden means of transport has elicited both ayes and nays. A solution to the problem of alternative means of livelihood would most certainly require will and nerves of steel on the part of the administrators. After all, isn’t it time that the human horses experience real freedom…58 years after the British rulers left Indian shores?

SOURCE: TERI