On a recent visit to Delhi I was in the Bhogal area looking for transport to Nizamuddin railway station to take a train back home to Hyderabad. The distance is not more than a couple of kilometers but auto rickshaws either demanded an exorbitant amount for this relatively short distance or refused to come at all. I eventually hailed a cycle rickshaw who agreed immediately and for only half of what the auto rickshaws were demanding. I loaded my bags and hopped in. We were soon zig-zagging our way through the crazy traffic, going the wrong side for a short distance, and even jumping a small traffic light before the station came quickly in sight. The cycle rickshaw then veered suddenly to the right and stopped behind a couple of others that were already standing there a good 200 meters or so from the entry to the railway station. I looked puzzled at the rickshaw wallah as autos, taxis and private cars loaded with passengers and luggage zoomed past us to go ahead right to the steps of the station entrance where I was obviously expecting the rickshaw wallah also to take me.
The rickshaw wallah took a moment to acknowledge my puzzlement as he realised that I was unaware of the rules of this game. He smiled apologetically and said in Hindi, “ Aagey nahin ja sakte, sirji. Autowalley, taxiwalle nahin jane dete. Sawari kaat te ho, bolte hain (Can’t go ahead sirji. Auto and taxi wallahs don’t let us go. You cut away our customers, they say).
I thought it was extremely unfair to me that I would now have to walk this extra distance just because I’d chosen a particular mode of transport. My irritation was only heightened as I now lugged my heavy bags along the same stretch of road where autos and cars continued to zip past. It was when I had finally settled down in my berth in the train that I was able to see my sense of irritation and being discriminated against in context. If this was unfair to me, how unfair was it for the cycle rickshaw wallah who was only engaged in a fair and hard-working mode of earning a livelihood? Clearly, fewer passengers would avail his services if they were forced, systemically, to make an extra effort to reach the station. And what chance would the rickshaw wallah have of getting a savari if an arriving passenger had to travel an additional distance to even realise that a cycle rickshaw was available for hiring?
Nuisance on the road
Why is it that the rickshaw wallah should be so discriminated against and we should not even notice it, leave alone ask a question about it? There is no doubting that this is a function of the current popular imagination, where the rickshaw wallah embodies much that is wrong and undesirable. The cycle rickshaw is today as unprivileged a vehicle in the hierarchy of transportation modes as the rickshaw wallah is in a society that is unable to value simplicity and hard physical labour. He is seen as driving down the wrong side of the road, of crossing over where a crossing is not allowed, of repeatedly impeding the smooth and fast flow of ‘traffic’. Not only is he a remnant of a less technological past, he is the laggard that we want annihilated as elevated roads, fast cars and even more motorisation takes over our lives.
But it is precisely at this point that we need to invert the question and the prism that we look through. What would happen if, for a moment, we turn the lens and look at the world from the viewpoint of the rickshaw wallah? The problem then lies not in the cycle rickshaw, but in the vision that we have for our urban spaces and for what mobility means. We forget that the cycle rickshaw is not against traffic—it is traffic itself. Transportation policy and planning in India today has become about moving vehicles when it should actually be about moving people. The current structures are not just unfair, they are outright hostile to the cyclist, the pedestrian and the cycle rickshaw. And yet, the rickshaw has not been annihilated.
There is something about the cycle rickshaw’s relevance and resilience that needs to be acknowledged and understood. It is simple and adaptable in a way that quickly finds modes of survival, of space and slippages where none seem to exist. One has to only see how effectively and efficiently the cycle rickshaw has stepped in to provide last mile connectivity at the stations across New Delhi’s massive metro train network. And this in addition to its ubiquitous existence in all kinds of geographies across the length and breadth not just of India’s capital city, but the entire country itself.
Introduced to Delhi in the 1940s, the cycle rickshaw quickly became a popular mode of cheap transport. Its popularity increased and some estimates suggest that there are nearly six lakh cycle rickshaws in the capital today, providing direct employment to nearly a million migrant workers.
Here, then, is a mode of transport that is at the same time even-paced and silent, provides reliable mobility and connections over short distances, is a livelihood source for millions across the country, and is a mode of transport that leaves behind nothing called a carbon footprint. There is absolutely no reason why it should not be accorded a place of pride in urban mobility planning, in efforts at containing the runaway problem of greenhouse gas emissions and the resultant climate change crisis, and in allowing people control over the means of their lives and livelihoods.
Even if we cannot accord the cycle rickshaw priority (though there is no reason why we cannot), principles of equity and natural justice demand it be provided a level playing field at least. And that surely is not asking for much!
The writer researches issues at the intersection of environment, science, society and technology.
