Meter Down in Mumbai

The war between the city’s middle-class and its autorickshaw drivers

Those who commute to work in Mumbai look at autorickshaw and taxi drivers with almost as much hate as Raj Thackeray, but for different reasons. Rickshaws, at a half-utopian point in the past, used to be a service for those who thought they had stepped just enough up the class ladder to do away with buses. All you had to do was raise an arm, and there would be one sputtering to your feet. But everyone got slightly richer, and now the autorickshaw slows a little, the driver asks for the destination, and drives away, leaving an exhaust cloud of humiliation.

The collective outrage over such rejections led to the city’s Road Transport Organisation launching a series of measures. These drives first targeted drivers who turned down customers, and later spilled onto rigged meters. In response, over the last fortnight, autorickshaw drivers in Mumbai have gone on strike twice. The first time, it was for the very peculiar right to run rigged meters. This petered out, but at some point they understood the oldest rule of trade unionism: every agitation needs a moral basis; if what you are demanding is ridiculous, there will be no moral basis; therefore you must agitate for something more legitimate and use that to push for your absurd demand, which, in this case, is the right to cheat.

So this week, the strike was/is for a fare increase that guarantees autorickshaw drivers a monthly take of at least Rs 25,000. This is a valid demand. The Maharashtra government is aware of the abysmal state of the city’s public transport, but has no solution because it is incompetent, corrupt and without any imagination. Instead, it restricts rickshaw and taxi fares to extremely low levels. And, no new permits have been issued since 1998. So supply is frozen while demand spirals. But what should really cause concern is the trade union militancy behind these strikes. Hordes of autorickshaw drivers are stopping the ones that are plying. It reminds you of Kerala and West Bengal. Mumbai expects such bullying only from the Shiv Sena. And consider that this is the same bunch who took it without a squeak when Raj Thackeray’s breakaway party members made a spectacle of bashing up taxi drivers at random. Another gene has mutated in Mumbai’s spiral of descent.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

•