Running on rickshaws

Mukhtar Ali, general secretary of All Bengal Rickshaw Union, said there are about 3,500 hand-pulled rickshaws today, which is a significant decline from the 6,000 that plied the streets in 1919.

Hand-pulled rickshaws were invented in Japan in 1869, with the term "rickshaw" derived from the Japanese word jin riki sha, meaning human-powered vehicle.

The British introduced these rickshaws to Kolkata, replacing the ornate palanquins used by the aristocracy, including landlords and businessmen. This shift reinforced the colonial master-slave power dynamics, as it involved one human manually pulling another.

In 1919, the British enacted the Calcutta Hackney-Carriage Act, which authorized the use of hand-pulled rickshaws for passenger transport in Kolkata. These rickshaws thus became the bourgeois alternative to palanquins. Despite the decline of British colonialism in India after World War II, hand-drawn rickshaws remain a lasting legacy in the city.

Despite efforts to phase them out, hand-pulled rickshaws continue to survive due to their simplicity and the ease with which unskilled laborers can operate them.

Many pullers are seasonal migrants from the states Bihar and Jharkhand, turning to this work when their farmlands lie fallow. These pullers typically rent their rickshaws from sardars, owners who run rickshaw garages. The government has ceased issuing new licenses or renewing old ones, aiming to phase out these relics of a bygone era.