While the world has moved from hand-pulled rickshaws to app-based cabs and electric mobility, a small but resilient group of men in Kolkata still earn their living by pulling humans through the city’s streets. Barefoot or in thin slippers, they navigate flooded lanes during monsoons, scorching summer heat, and densely crowded roads, their bodies serving as the sole engine of an outdated yet enduring mode of transport.
Kolkata remains one of the last major cities on Earth where hand-pulled rickshaws, locally known as tana rickshaws, continue to operate on a noticeable scale. These colonial-era vehicles persist mainly in the narrow alleys of North and Central Kolkata, where cars, autos, and even cycle rickshaws often cannot maneuver easily. Estimates suggest that more than 5,000 licensed and around 14,000 unlicensed rickshaws are still active, primarily serving short-distance needs such as ferrying schoolchildren, housewives, the elderly, and light goods.
The pullers are mostly migrant workers from Bihar, Odisha, and rural districts of West Bengal. Many are in their 50s to 70s, reflecting the harsh physical demands of the job that few young men are willing to take up. A typical day involves pulling the weight of the rickshaw, passengers, and sometimes additional cargo across uneven, potholed roads. Daily earnings are modest—often between ₹300 and ₹500 after deducting the rent paid to rickshaw owners, which can be around ₹200 per week. Most live in basic roadside lodges or on pavements, sending whatever they can save back to their families in the villages.
The persistence of hand-pulled rickshaws is both practical and controversial. In the labyrinthine lanes of old Kolkata, they remain one of the most efficient ways to move people and parcels where modern vehicles fail. Successive state governments have attempted to phase them out—most notably through a 2006 bill—but strong resistance citing livelihood concerns, coupled with the lack of viable rehabilitation alternatives for the pullers, has kept the practice alive. Today, they are widely regarded as a relic of the past, operated by what many describe as the “last generation” of such workers.
Critics argue that the system is exploitative and inhumane, reducing human beings to draft animals in an age of technological progress. Supporters, however, point out that it provides crucial income to unskilled, often illiterate laborers who would otherwise struggle to find any employment in the city. The physical toll is undeniable: chronic back pain, joint problems, respiratory issues from pollution, and constant exposure to extreme weather mark the daily reality of these men.
Yet, amid Kolkata’s rapid modernization, these pullers embody a quiet resilience. They represent an older, slower rhythm of the city—one that is gradually fading but has not yet disappeared. For visitors and residents alike, a ride on a hand-pulled rickshaw offers a direct, if uncomfortable, window into this vanishing world. Many feel a mix of fascination and guilt, often choosing to tip generously as a small acknowledgment of the human effort involved.
As Kolkata inches toward a future of metro expansions, electric vehicles, and smart mobility, the sight of a lone man pulling passengers through flooded streets serves as a powerful reminder of uneven development and the enduring struggle for dignified livelihoods in urban India. The hand-pulled rickshaw may eventually vanish, but the stories of the men who once powered them will remain etched in the city’s collective memory.
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