All those who grew up cycling their summer holidays away might find it difficult to understand why the simple act of bicycling can seem like resistance to some. Unfortunately, women regularly cycling on the streets of South Asian cities is such a rare sight that when you see even a few of them, it seems like an act of defiance. And when you spot large groups of women taking over the roads with their cycles, it makes for a spectacular sight.
Recently, our social media feed has been filled with powerful images from across our western border, of several groups of young women cycling on the main roads of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. In salwars , jeans, hijabs , helmets and baseball caps — they are laughing, smiling, waving placards (‘Two-tyred of the Patriarchy’, says one cleverly, ‘Our roads, our city’, says another) as they steer their cycles over a few kilometres, compelling us to re imagine South Asian city space in more gender inclusive terms. The April 1 Aurat cycle rallies across three Pakistani cities was organised by Girls At Dhabas (GAD), a feminist group that encourages women to reclaim public space in a multitude of ways, including cycling. This year marked their third annual cycle rally, attracting 70 women participants each in Lahore and Islamabad, and about 30 in Karachi. The first cycle rally had started off in 2016 in support of Lahore cyclist Aneeqa Ali, who was harassed, hit and injured by men in a car for riding her bike, and the incident prompted a debate on women’s right to cycle safely on the streets.
In an interview to this column, Sadia Khatri, founder member of GAD, said that this year saw “a marked shift... in the number of people (of all genders) supporting the rally and discussing why cycling/accessing public spaces is important in our feminism(s).” Though the increased visibility of the cycle rally on social media platforms attracted some very positive support among young middle-class women, it also resulted in a “backlash and targeted harassment of the women participants,” said Shmyla Khan, convenor of the Lahore cycle rally. According to Sadia, photographs of women from the cycle rally are being circulated with all kinds of humiliating, slut-shaming comments, including “women should stick to their place in society, cycling is a sin because it breaks your hymen, what has feminism come down to.”
Still GAD is optimistic that the cycle rallies can further the cause of year-round women’s cycling in public space, though currently cycling isn’t a part of Pakistani women’s general experience in the city. Already ‘Girls on Bikes’ groups exist in Karachi and Lahore, and now a new group is expected to start in Islamabad/Rawalpindi. Cycle rallies are symbolic gestures, indicating that a male-dominated public space should get used to increased women’s presence and to make women confident of their own rights to the public. The cycle has brought change in several parts of rural India. Like in the Pudukkottai district (Tamil Nadu), where economic prospects of many neo-literate rural women improved when they learnt to ride bicycles. Or in Bihar, where girls’ secondary school enrolment rose by 30% when cycles were given to them for commuting. Some day, we hope that cycling will become a very ordinary thing for women in South Asia, not a cause for harassment, not a spectacle. Just a girl with a bike with the wind in her hair.
Sameera Khan is a Mumbai-based journalist, researcher and co-author, Why Loiter? Women & Risk on Mumbai Streets
