Kolkata is soon to be divested of what is arguably its most resilient metaphor. The hand-drawn rickshaw, celebrated by story-tellers, journalists, and film-makers alike, may inspire a certain frisson of romance in some, but it also just as tellingly captures the urban stagnation and social deprivation that characterises West Bengal’s capital.By stating that he intended to banish this anachronistic vehicle from Kolkata’s streets, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee plumbs for the promise of modernity. Ever the pragmatic, he has little patience for those who bemoan the end of this little piece of history. Why must Kolkata remain the only major metropolis in the world to showcase such an “eye-sore”, he wishes to know. Why indeed? In many ways, the hand-drawn rickshaw belongs to the old economy — of feudal mores, low levels of growth, and human migration driven by the unyielding poverty spiral. It was the lack of human choices, after all, that had forced Balraj Sahni’s Shambu — the dispossessed peasant in Bimal Roy’s neo-realist masterpiece, Do Bigha Zameen — to eke out a living by plying a rickshaw.Bhattacharjee’s fellow Kolkatans should support him in his drive to liberate both the metropolis and the rickshaw puller from this demeaning mode of transportation. Earlier attempts at removing it have proved to be non-starters and Kolkata cannot afford another brush with failure. Bhattacharjee has said that the transition will be made as painless as possible for those who are now required to give up their only means of earning a livelihood. Licensed rickshaw pullers are to be given alternative vehicles or alternative vocations, the chief minister has promised. He should take that commitment seriously. Kolkata, meanwhile, can move on and join the 21st century and, if at all the hand-drawn rickshaw stages a comeback on its streets, it must be as jazzed up — and expensively priced — tourist distractions that can occasionally be sighted on the streets of London.
