Calcutta will soon ban hand-pulled rickshaws. Is this a move to liberate the oppressed from their yoke, or just a clumsy attempt by the communists to eliminate an eyesore that is also a highly effective market based response to current transportation inefficiencies?

The Chief Minister claims his motives are humanitarian, and says that he will look after the interests of all those affected:

Mr Bhattacharya said: “We have taken a policy decision to take the hand-drawn rickshaw off the roads of Calcutta on humanitarian grounds.  Nowhere else in the world does this practice exist and we think it should also cease to exist in Calcutta.” 

The chief minister said the authorities were thinking of alternative modes of transport so that the transition did not affect either the pullers or the riders. “This involves money and training. It will be about the end of this year when the rickshaws are finally gone,” he said. [BBC]

This will be no small order. Rickshaws have been around for a while and fill an important role in the city:

The hand-pulled rickshaw came from China in the 19th century. A recent study …  put the number of hand-rickshaw pullers at 18,000 with more than 1,800 joining the pool every year. Many Calcuttans are uncertain whether they will be able to move around the city’s old lanes without the hand-pulled rickshaws - particularly during the monsoon. “When we have to wade in chest-deep water during rains, no other transport works but you can still find the hand-pulled rickshaws taking people from one place to another,” says Dipali Nath, a housewife in north Calcutta. [BBC]

Would cycle-rickshaws work easily well in the rain? I don’t know - I have no idea what the streets of Calcutta are like during the monsoon season. I am concerned about the rickshaw pullers themselves. As inhumane as this practice seems, there are many more odious forms of physical labor that involve far less independence.

Some trade unions are demanding adequate compensation and an alternate livelihood for all the pullers before their licences are cancelled and the mode of transport banned. [BBC]

Honestly, I suspect they will persist for a long time. Rickshaws might be removed from the main thoroughfares where they tarnish the city’s more modern image, but in the poor quarters they will probably continue plying their trade until they are no longer useful. I can’t see the state devoting the efforts necessary to implement a total ban, nor do I think this is the best use of their efforts. For example, I would rather that they cracked down hard on child labor.

Much as it makes me uneasy to see one man pulling another, I have to respect the fact that the pullers would probably rather be doing that job than breaking rocks into gravel or many other forms of manual labor available to them. Nor do I think that their lot is the worst in the city, so it’s not clear to me that it’s worth throwing a lot of resources into their retraining. I would rather find a market based solution that let them disappear gradually as better options became available. Make more micro-finance available to the poor so that they have more choices, but then respect most of the choices they make and use the state to ban only the most obviously exploitative practices.