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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

From e-rickshaw pranks to denying lifts in the RWA—Indians’ joke is always on the poor

There’s a term for this kind of sport, borrowed from wildlife conservation, which describes hunting or baiting animals for pleasure of watching them suffer: Recreational cruelty.

A few weeks ago, a friend who had attended a screening of a restored version of Do Bigha Zamin came back disheartened. The raw, despairing power of Bimal Roy’s 1953 classic has remained intact, but the audience has changed over seven decades. The film would have caused anguish even a few years ago, but parts of it are now fodder for laughter.

Even in a harrowing meditation on poverty, there are two poignant scenes which stand out in Do Bigha Zamin. First, Shambhu Mahto — played with aching misery by Balraj Sahni — teetering on the edge of landlessness, goes from pillar to post in search of work. He and his hungry young child land before a man in a suit on a Kolkata street to ask, “Gareeb aadmi hoon babuji, kahin kaam milega? (I am a poor person, sir. Can I get a job anywhere?)” The man doesn’t bother slowing down long enough to answer and waves him off rudely. 

Second, Shambhu has become a hand-pulled rickshaw driver. Two lovers, mid-quarrel, hire a rickshaw each, chasing the other through the city streets. Shambhu hauls the man through Kolkata traffic, who exhorts him to go faster and faster for a higher fare, running until he draws level with a horse carriage, eventually outstripping the animal. The lovers, meanwhile, oblivious to the pain of the men ferrying them, laugh with abandon. 

That laughter echoed through the Mumbai hall. The audience laughed along with the couple on screen at exactly the moments that are meant to be unbearable.

Same thing, different era

A few weeks later, the same thing happened, this time on actual streets. The same desperation that Shambhu Mahto’s face once bore, reflected in the faces of e-rickshaw drivers stalled in the middle of the street in parts of North India.  

A new genre of social media clout-chasing, tagged “tirri control” across Instagram and YouTube, has unfolded over the last few days. It shows young men riding a bike and tailing e-rickshaws, derogatorily labelled ‘tirri’, and disabling them mid-journey using a phone app called BAT-BMS. The app was built as a companion app for technicians, meant to monitor Bluetooth-enabled lithium-ion batteries. 

But........

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