Bicycles in Modern India

´Bicycles world over emerged as a cheaper, simpler

and more autonomous mode of transport compared
to horses, carriages, railroads and various other
modern automobiles.

´It provided a new sense of mobility, created

possibilities of increased sociability, and new notions
of public stylishness.

´It was used for work as well as for leisure, used on

untarred roads of rural areas as well as urban streets.
It was used with much enthusiasm across the world.
´Bicycles were also easily amenable to local adaptations
and appropriations. It became a set type for further
local inventiveness.
Entry and Spread of Bicycles in India
´Cycles entered India in significant numbers in the
1890s, and subsequent decades witnessed the
numbers gradually increasing just as in the case of
sewing machines.

´Before 1914 new cycles were relatively expensive,

costing between Rs. 85 and Rs. 250, but during the
Great Depression, prices fell, sometimes even below
Rs. 50 – making them increasingly affordable. By the
late 1940s and early 1950s, cost of buying and
maintaining a cycle was well within the budget of a
middle-class household.
In any case, bicycles were not
always purchased individually.
Sometimes they were provided
by employers for office
workers and low-ranking
government servants, such as
policemen, postmen, telegraph
boys, and sanitary workers.

´Poorly supplied with public transport, the vast

expanses of the urban centres necessitated the
grant of bicycle advances and loans for government
employees to get to and from their places of work.
´Overall, between 1912 and 1946 around 2.5 million
bicycles were imported into India, on average about
70,000 a year, but a further 1.2 million bicycles
entered India in the years between 1947–48 and
1951–52, equivalent to more than 200,000 a year.

´Yet, the ratio of cycles to the total population

remained low compared to other countries – less than
4 cycles for every 1000 Indians compared to 255 in
Britain, 463 in Netherlands, 539 in Denmark – a sign
of its affordability among a generally impoverished
population. Meanwhile, in urban areas, it was higher –
in Madras, one out of 10 men owned or used a cycle.
´The 1950s saw a leap in cycle use across India,
with cycles available for hire even in small towns
and villages.
´Stealing cycles was common. In Madras, in the
mid-1930s cycle thefts averaged around 230 a
year; by 1938 that number had risen to 440
(admittedly only a tiny percentage of the
estimated 33,000 bicycles in Madras at the time).
Bombay and the cities of northern India were
similarly plagued by bicycle thieves, with Bombay
alone reporting more than a thousand thefts in
1939. Some places had organized gangs at work.
´Until the 1950s, the great majority of India’s cycles
were made in Britain. The different manufacturers
included: Hercules, BSA, and Rudge-Whitworth. By the
1940s, like Singer, the emerging cycle company,
absorbing small rivals, however, was Raleigh. Following
the 1950s, there was much restriction on the import of
cycles and many Indian companies began to be popular
– Hind Cycles, Atlas, Hero, etc.

´Though there was no domestic manufacturing of cycles

till the 1950s, there was much local initiative towards
importing parts such as frames, chains and saddles,
assembling them and selling them.
Bicycles, Race and Gender
´When it comes to the Europeans in India, at one level,
before the second decade of the 20th century, the
bicycle gave them a newfound sense of physical
freedom and possibilities of sociability.

´This was especially true of those Europeans who were

at the margins of the ruling establishment –
missionaries, doctors, factory inspectors, engineers,
teachers, etc. Even some high-ranking Europeans did
not hesitate to use cycles and there were white cycling
clubs too.
´However, by the 1920s, it was felt that a ‘better’
automobile than cycle was required to preserve
greater social distance between the colonizer and the
colonized.

´It was felt that cycling in the heat of the Indian day, a
European was likely to arrive at his or her destination
sweaty and dishevelled, his or her racial authority
compromised.

´Moreover, it was perceived that Europeans would be

vulnerable to attacks during a riot or a nationalist
protest – the fear and concern over European women
being attacked was even more.
´The racial anxiety of the Europeans came to be further
heightened by the fact that more Indians were taking
to cycling, and hence, it was becoming less
‘respectable’ for Europeans to be riding cycles.

´It was among young, middle-class men, particularly

students, that bicycle became popular first. It became
part of their quest for a healthier image and a more
self-reliant lifestyle. As early as the 1890s, in Calcutta
and Bombay, they set up and joined cycling clubs,
went on cycle tours through the countryside and
participated in cycle races, which by now had become
a major sporting event.
´In Bengal, it became the means through which Bengali
men challenged the European representation of them
being ‘effeminate’ and assert their masculinity
through an emerging cult of physical fitness. Cycling,
in general, became symbolic of the need for physical
fitness and vigour.

´Meanwhile, women were discouraged from taking to

cycling to begin with. While cycling was associated
with the construction of ‘the new woman’ - one who
is socially and sexually free – in Europe and America,
in India, except for a few women from middle class
and urban families, women didn’t take to cycling.
´Even if they did, it was not considered well, especially
if women had reached marriageable age. In fact, there
was even an argument put forward mostly by men
that it was dangerous for young women to ride
bicycles as it would ‘rupture their hymens’ and
therein ruin their marriage prospects.

´There also seems to have been a broad prejudice

against the physical mobility and independence
women might acquire by riding a bicycle. Women
were expected to be within the domestic space and
the new technology seemed to promise a mobility
that could disturb the traditional order.
´ In rural Maharashtra as late as the 1970s Hemlata Dandekar
noted how “you never see women or even young girls on bicycles
in the village.” Even in the nearby town, “a woman riding a
bicycle is a rare sight.” One girl told her that she wouldn’t dare
ride a bicycle in her village—her in-laws would be scandalized.
Even those who rode bikes as girls were prevented from doing so
as adults: it was considered no more appropriate for a woman
to ride a bike than to plow a field or drive a tractor,
conventionally men’s work. Some of the women Dandekar
interviewed clearly resented this restriction. So, while for young
men the bicycle might be a means to adventure (including visits
to cinemas and brothels), for women the bicycle symbolized the
constraints patriarchy imposed on their adult lives.
From David Arnold, Everyday Technology
´However, in spite of these prejudices, subsequently,
many women began to take to riding cycles, especially
in contexts where it became a necessity. It became
common among school girls and female college
students; women political activists and messengers.
´Moreover, bicycle companies also didn’t restrict their
promotion of the cycles to men alone, but eventually
included the women too.
´Though large number of women, subsequently began
to use cycles, did it do away with gender stereotypes?

In terms of the design, make and colour, gender

stereotypes have only come to be further reinforced.
Cycling Towards Swadeshi
´The idea of swadeshi, especially when it came to
everyday technologies like cycles, could never become
one where a machine could be entirely rejected or
boycotted just because it was either imported or was
imbued with elements and meanings that spoke of
west’s cultural dominance – ambiguity of swadeshi.
´The dilemma – The use and benefits of everyday
technology was apparent, and there was a need felt
for it. At the same time, they also tended to reinforce
the economic and technological dependence of the
sub-continent on the west.
´Most of the cycles in the colonial period were imported
and this was true well into the middle of the 20th century.
However, the domestic market participated actively in the
process of assembly, sale and distribution.

´Assembling and repairing: Repairing workshops sprang

up in the major cities. By 1911 Calcutta had two
workshops, employing 44 workers, for assembling
bicycles. Twenty years later more than a thousand people
in Calcutta and over 2,500 in Madras were employed in
the repair of automobiles and bicycles. Lahore reputedly
had its own “bicycle makers.” Importing and assembling
parts provided the base for what, after 1947, became a
major industry.
´Sale and Distribution: By 1910s and 20s, Indian cycle
dealers appeared on the streets of almost every town
and city, selling their wares in open-fronted shops or
on the pavement. They sold cycle parts and
accessories, undertook repairs, or combined the sale
of bicycles with motorbikes and automobiles. Bazaars
became sites where new, but also second hand and
reconditioned machines were bought or hired.

´By the 1920s, there were several cycle importers,

dealers and repairers in Madras, Delhi, Bombay, etc.
Parsis comprised an important community involved
in retail sale of bicycles. Eg. Rustomji & Co.
´Entrepreneurship: Indians had begun to become
leading entrepreneurs in the cycle trade even before
independence.

Sudhir Kumar Sen: Though he looked up to those who

advocated the need for swadeshi enterprise, Sen
developed his own interpretation of swadeshi. He did
not denounce foreign machines as unnecessary
‘luxuries’. He saw in bicycles a means to Indian well-
being and self-sufficiency. For him, promoting the use
of cycles, even marketing foreign machines, was a
necessary step towards eventually making them in, and
for, India. 1910 – establishes Sen & Pandit – eventually
becoming largest cycle importers in India.
´Through small workshops in Bombay, Calcutta, and
Punjab, local bicycle-making industry began to
develop in India in the 1930s, but it was held back by
the war and the absence of an Indian capacity to
manufacture high-quality steel for chains, ball
bearings, and freewheels. Only around 44,000
machines made in India (1945), despite an estimated
demand for half a million cycles a year.

´Unprecedented influx of foreign cycles after the war –

Hind Cycles in Bombay: stressing its swadeshi
credentials, appeal to customers to buy bicycles that
were “built in India, built for India, built by Indians” -
produced 150,000 machines a year (late 1940s).
´Even after independence, local firms found it
necessary to seek foreign collaborators, including
British manufacturers. 1950 – Sen-Raleigh company.
The aim was to manufacture 100,000 bicycles a year.

´With assistance from Tube Investments of

Birmingham, a rival cycle factory was established
near Madras in 1951 with a similar target of 100,000
bicycles a year.

´By the mid-1950s Hind Cycles and Atlas had also

become leading manufacturers giving India a
combined capacity of 400,000 machines a year.
´The local industry relied heavily on foreign
collaboration and was geared to making locally an
already familiar global commodity rather than
fostering innovative research and new forms of
technological development.

´For those like Sudhir Kumar Sen, swadeshi

encompassed an ultimate ambition to manufacture
modern industrial goods in India as well as a more
immediate aim of capturing the assembly and
distribution of imported goods and of putting them to
the service of the Indian population at large.