Machizo showcase

Magazine 19 Script: Bangladesh The Rickshaw Puller

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Hello. You’re listening to Panoscope, a fortnightly radio magazine produced by Panos Radio South Asia. On this edition of Panoscope, we go to Dhaka - the bustling capital of Bangladesh where thousands of rickshaws, those jauntily decorated three wheelers, jostle for space with cars, pedestrians, trucks, tempos and bicycles. Yet the migrant population that man these vehicles around the city often remain faceless, swelling the ranks of Dhaka’s urban poor.

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In Dhaka, a bustling metropolis of twelve million people, visitors are struck by waves of rickshaws. The colourfully decorated non motorised vehicles are everywhere. Yet rickshaw wallahs, the men who manoeuvre the three-wheelers around the city’s congested and polluted streets remain faceless. Forced by famine, floods, and debt, an estimated nine out of ten rickshaw drivers have migrated to Dhaka, swelling the ranks of the city’s urban poor. Mohammad Nantu Sarkar and his wife Fatima lead a hand to mouth existence in Dhaka’s slums. They spoke to Panoscope’s Siraj Sirajuddin.

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Nantu, the Rickshaw Puller:

My name is Mohammed Nantu Sharker. I come from Barguna Thana in Borishal district. We came to Dhaka after the river swept away our land and house. I came as a child. I would break construction bricks with my parents. When I grew older I started pulling a rickshaw. I don’t have any other skill. I want to learn to drive a taxi but I don’t have the money to buy a license to operate a taxi. I earn my daily income pulling rickshaws. We live a hand to mouth existence.

My daughter is seven and my son is six years old. We cannot afford a private school so we send them to public school where they get clothes and food. It’s hard to make ends meet. I used to make two hundred to two hundred and fifty Taka daily. Now that the city’s main roads have been closed to rickshaws, I only make hundred to hundred and fifty Taka. It’s difficult to get by on this decreased income. So my wife also works. She earns fifteen hundred Taka a month. We cannot save anything.

Fatima, the Rickshaw Puller’s Wife:

I get fifteen hundred Taka. We live in the slums where the house rent is low. However, we have to buy wood for cooking fuel. Here, the smell from the leather tanneries is very strong and there’s a high risk of diseases. We have to bear the terrible smell. We’re compelled to live here with our children.

I walk to work which is about three miles away. I start at seven in the morning and arrive at work around nine. I finish work around three to four in the evening and go home. At home I cook dinner, bathe the children and myself and finish the housework. By the time I retire, it’s midnight. I have to wake up early again. It’s hard.

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Nantu, the Rickshaw Puller:

I don’t own a rickshaw. I rent one. I have to pay fifty Taka for half a day and ninety Taka for the whole day. I have to pay the rent even if I fall sick. Before I would operate the rickshaw around the whole of Dhaka city since the roads were accessible to us. Since the government imposed a ban on rickshaws in Dhaka’s main streets, we cannot enter Mirpur or go to Motijil. Now we operate in the suburbs. Before we could earn at least two hundred Taka. Now it’s only hundred Taka. After paying the rental fee, it’s difficult to save hundred Taka. There is no time to rest in between trips. Whereas we charge fifty Taka, motorized vehicles charge passengers forty Taka for the same route. Passengers also seem to prefer motorized transport since the route we take is longer. So we have to reduce our price. Otherwise passengers will take other vehicles. Moreover, the number of rickshaws has increased so there’s a rush for the passengers.

Fatima, the Rickshaw Puller’s Wife:

We don’t have any property or any savings. We live from hand to mouth. If we managed to put aside some savings, we’d like to build a house in the village. If my husband could drive a taxi, we would be able to buy some land in the village but we haven’t been able to. You need money to make a driving license. You need driving training as well. It costs ten thousand Taka to have a driving license issued. We can’t manage that amount. So I’ve started to work as a housemaid.

Nantu, the Rickshaw Puller:

I’ve heard about the rehabilitation program for rickshaw pullers so they can find alternative jobs but I don’t know of anyone who’s attended it. I haven’t benefited from it. May be the rickshaw owners, the more educated owners will benefit from the program since they have access to information. But the regular rickshaw pullers haven’t got any support.

Physically, it’s hard pulling a rickshaw. At the end of the day, I don’t feel like talking to anyone. At home I just lie down. I do not want to walk at all. Pulling two passengers is not an easy job. The body is not an engine. It requires power to pull a rickshaw. You need energy in the legs and hips to pull two passengers. Otherwise the rickshaw will not move.

If I owned a rickshaw, the money which I pay the owners now as rent, would be my own. I could save that. Moreover, I could be more relaxed while pulling the rickshaw. I could take ten minute rests between the trips. I could save fifty Taka, spend thirty Taka on some other things, and use twenty Taka for rickshaw repairs or for treatment. I could take the children to the doctor when they fall sick. I can’t afford to do any of these things at the moment.

Fatima, the Rickshaw Puller’s Wife:

We work hard and send our children to school so they will get an education. I do not want my son to become a rickshaw puller like his father. Our children should have office jobs. This would be possible with an education. They shouldn’t be like us.

Nantu, the Rickshaw Puller:

I plan to give up rickshaw pulling as soon as possible. If I can get other work or a driving license for a taxi, it would be very good for our family. We need to send the children to school so they don’t become rickshaw pullers like me. I do not want my son to be sick and weak at a young age like me. I want them to enjoy healthy lives and to hold prestigious jobs – any other work but pulling a rickshaw.

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Editor of The New Nation, a Dhaka-based English Daily, Mostafa Kamal Majumder is a leading environmental writer in Bangladesh. In the Panos publication “Environment for All”, he writes how environmental degradation in rural Bangladesh forces thousands of villagers to migrate to cities and take up jobs like rickshaw driving. In a telephone interview, he spoke to Panoscope.

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In: Bangladesh The Rickshaw Puller Interview.mp3

RL: How many rickshaw pullers or rickshaws are there in Dhaka?

MKM: Actually no one can tell for sure exactly the numbers. According to Dhaka City Corporation, there might be some eighty thousand rickshaws with licenses, which means these are legal rickshaws, and recent estimates made by N-G-Os and other people indicate that the number of rickshaws should be more than seven hundred thousand. On an average, two rickshaw pullers work one rickshaw everyday… You can say fourteen hundred thousand rickshaw pullers are plying seven hundred thousand or maybe even many thousand more.

RL: Most of these rickshaw pullers are migrants… What are the reasons that they come to Dhaka?

MKM: Degradation of the environment at their homes, I mean their village homes, and deterioration of their economic conditions for environmental and social reasons. These are the two factors. You see, in the outlying districts in the villages, the resources are not managed on a participatory basis and the people like fishermen and others who depend on the common property did not have a say in their conservation or sustainable management and then there are natural disasters. This is a natural disaster prone country. There are floods, droughts, and then you have cyclones. River bank erosion is a big problem in Bangladesh. About a million people are displaced every year.

RL: There are also seasonal migrants, you know, I mean, the labour that they sell it advance to pay their labour and pay off for their families and many families just survive on one meal a day...

MKM: Yeah, you are right. You see, they are basically agricultural communities and agriculture is seasonal. And there are some pockets where during lean season people don’t have work so they also don’t have income. That’s why there is hunger when the season is lean so they have to migrate. But those that are hard pressed don’t go back because they cannot sustain themselves in the villages.

RL: So how is Dhaka or Bangladesh dealing with this urban poverty or this increase or the swell of numbers coming to the big cities?

MKM: You see, there hasn’t been much of a, I should say, planned management of migrants. They come and take advantage of the opportunity of enhanced earning in the urban areas and earn their living. There have been some activities in the last one decade and a half to extend some basic services but those were not very well organized. For instance some micro credit programs were started in the late nineties. Simultaneously, the government acted by evicting slums. So these programs have not worked well. In a disjointed way some benefits were given but not in a systematic way.

RL: Put a ban on non-motorized transport like rickshaws operating in the busy areas in Dhaka. Has it helped improve traffic problems?

MKM: No. That has not helped much. Two steps were taken because of campaigns to improve the air pollution. The cars having registration of more than 20 years old were banned and two stroke three wheelers were driven out of the city. And then CNG automobiles were introduced. This helped improve the environmental condition, as far as the quality of air is concerned.

RL: So are there any plans or programs to check this environment degradation?

MKM: There have been some programs. For instance, you might have heard of a social forestry program that involves poor people in aforestation activities and they get a share of the wood and also fruits if there are fruit bearing trees. There are some attempts but not enough.

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That’s it for this edition of Panoscope. Thanks for listening.

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Panoscope is an independent production of Panos Radio South Asia. We’re committed to providing a forum for voices, views and issues not often heard in the mainstream media. If you have suggestions for future programs please contact us at:

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