For us, that is Eid

Mahfuz Sadique on what Eid day means to the thousands of rickshawpullers of Dhaka….

Angur Sheikh is the eccentric one among the rickshaw pullers at his garage. He refuses to pull a rickshaw for fares on Eid day. Though the Gaibandha man — like most men at his garage in Dhaka’s Adabar area — cannot afford to go home for Eid, Angur has plans for the biggest holiday of the year. He will do what he sees Dhaka’s rich people do everyday. On Eid day, he says, with northern accent, ‘Rikhsha loiya ektu ghurmu firmu. Khap khatmu na.’
As more than half of Dhaka’s population have left for their native homes in a mass exodus, the streets of Dhaka wear a deserted look. But the inconspicuous rickshaws, and their pullers, are still here. Not because they want to; because they have to.
Despite having left home and pulled rickshaws all through the month of Ramadan, Eid has added incentive for the men on three wheels. For three days starting on Eid day, garage owners forfeit the rent on their rickshaws.
‘For us that is Eid. Whatever we earn is ours. For three days we try to earn as much as we can, and then leave for home,’ said Parimol from Rajibpur, Kurigram.
Even extra earnings are not incentive enough for some to stay. But yet they are stuck.
‘If I could I would have left. But before Eid it is almost impossible to get a ticket. Bus tickets to Gaibandha cost at least Tk 150-200 more. I can’t afford that,’ said Angur Sheikh.
The two little pink dresses for the nine-month-old twin daughters, the green sari for the paribar (wife) and the brown belt for the teenage brother, all have to wait. They are tucked away in the worn-out bag at a corner of the makeshift mess atop the garage. Here, seventy other men sleep, and dream of the same things that Angur Sheikh dreams of.
Dozens of rickshaw garages are housed along Road No. 16 of Adabar, a low-income neighbourhood, just beside Mohammad-pur. Men from the same village, or the same thana, rent rickshaws from one particular garage.
Zahir Miah is the owner of one such garage. He owns thirty rickshaws. While all through the year his garage houses anything between 30-35 men, this Ramadan has seen a rapid rise in the number of men coming from his locality, Dimla thana under Nilphamari district.
‘Right after the tenth of Ramadan, they started coming in groups. In the hope that the festive season would give them employment in the capital, as there is barely any work in our area [Dimla thana], they are still calling on my mobile from back home to ask if more can come,’ said Zahir on Thursday.
Though this Eid the situation is more severe than in other years, as monga — the agricultural lean season in the northern districts that leads to a lack of employment resulting in a famine-like situation — and Eid have coincided, the situation has a similar pattern every Ramadan. This time it seems, even fate has shown its sense of irony!
Right from the beginning of Ramadan every year, thousands of men start pouring into the capital from all over the country, specially from the northern districts, in search of some work. The simplest and readily available, or as Motaleb from Zahir’s garage put it: ‘nogoder kam’ (‘work for cash’), is pulling rickshaws.
‘But even pulling rickshaws is not paying enough this Ramadan,’ complained Parimol. ‘With so many coming, there are more men in the garages than there are rickshaws. As a result most pullers are being given rickshaws on a rotation basis. I had to take yesterday off, as I got a rickshaw to pull the previous two days,’ explained Parimol.
‘With significantly more number of rickshaws plying on the roads, it has been hard to get commuters. By day’s end, compared to other Eids, I am earning nearly a hundred taka less. And so are the others. We are just too many,’ said Saju Miah, a puller from a garage in Kamlapur.
‘Add to that the hiked rent being charged by the rickshaw owners. Whereas at normal times, a city plate — registration plates of the City Corporation — used to be charged Tk 50-60 for half a day. Now we are been paying Tk 80-100.’
‘The rent for non-regular registrations has also gone up,’ said Abu Kalam, an elderly puller from Rangpur.
But Angur Sheikh is happy. His Eid will be different. ‘Ami sharadin ghurmu firmu, moen chaile tikit kaita cinema dekhmu.
Even if you want to, you wont be riding Angur’s rickshaw this Eid. He is celebrating his Eid on it.

Published: The New Age/ Eid-ul-fitr, 2005

Rickshaw pullers approach dead end

Mahfuz Sadique on the unabated miseries of lives lived off three wheels, on May Day

Served only by unyielding lender-funded rehabilitation projects and government indifference, the rickshaw pullers of the capital are enduring unabated economic stagnation as their profession is provided no protection by the laws of the state.
While the major issue of contention for the pullers remain the World Bank-initiated drive to restrict movement of rickshaws on major roads of the capital under the Dhaka Urban Transport Project, rehabilitation is only coming as a stopgap solution to the growing disquiet among the large populace of pullers as their already marginal incomes suffer further severe downturn.
Although a $7.5 million rehabilitation project for rickshaw pullers is on the cards this month as a mitigation measure for pullers suffering due to the phase-out of rickshaws from Mirpur Road between Kalabagaan and Azimpur, the project is dogged with scepticism as there exists no specific record of the pullers in the capital.
The Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation is marked to receive the ‘soft loan’ from the World Bank, an official at the Dhaka Transport Coordination Board said. The fund will be used to relocate pullers outside of Dhaka and to provide ‘targeted skills development’ termed as social assistance.
‘We have been requesting a comprehensive count of the total number of pullers which can be found only through a broad-based study. But we have had no response,’ Insur Ali, member secretary of Rickshaw Van Sramik Malik Sangram Parishad, told New Age on Saturday.
The lack of stakeholders’ participation — in this case the rickshaw pullers and owners — has led to further concerns that the final implementation will not reach the intended group.
Termed as an unskilled labourer, the approximately several hundred thousand pullers working in the capital, some permanently and most seasonally, have been largely ignored in terms of a permanent solution to their unskilled state.
In all the years that the number of rickshaw pullers has been increasing alarmingly due to multifarious reasons, mainly in the country’s rural belt, the government has taken no initiative to rehabilitate or relocate them.
Further adding to the problem is the fact that the pullers of the city do not have any collective platform to voice their demands. Several dozen unions exist in the capital aligned towards the major political parties.
The state also has no specific labour law pertaining to rickshaw pullers. ‘Though they (rickshaw pullers) fall under a legal explanation interpreted under the Master and Servants Relationship Act which puts the owner of the rickshaws as the master and the pullers as the servant, there are no labour laws that directly address their complaints,’ Adilur Rahman Khan, a deputy attorney general, told New Age on Friday.
‘Their only respite is Article 31 of the constitution which ensures the right to life. But that is a fundamental right for all citizens of Bangladesh,’ Adilur added.
With no specific labour law protecting the rights of rickshaw pullers, and rehabilitation projects not soliciting their opinions, the fate of the livelihood of hundreds and thousands of rickshaw pullers hangs by the thread as more roads of the capital are scheduled to be restricted to access by rickshaws.

Published: The New Age/ May Day, 2005