No more lunch in India for Bangladeshi rickshaw pullers

Ratnadeep Choudhury

Barely two years back, for hundreds of Bangladeshi rickshaw pullers, who used to illegally cross into Tripura, it was a regular routine to have their breakfast in Bangladesh, lunch in India, and dinner again back home in Bangladesh. For years it has been the same tale. Hundreds of Bangladeshi nationals enter Tripura's capital Agartala early in the morning, work for the day and return to their homes in the disguise of darkness. They are engaged in various works, pulling rickshaw being the most popular one. With the Indo-Bangla border being fenced and introduction of identity cards for registered rickshaw pullers by Agartala Municipal Council, this trend has got a major set back, there has been a significant downsize in the rate of illegal influx of these Bangladeshi rickshaw pullers.
Across the border, opposite to Agartala, there is Akhuara, a small hamlet in Bangladesh. Akhaura is barely a mile away from the Agartala city. Bangladeshi nationals have been illegally crossing the border into Agartala in search of works. Most of them have been pulling rickshaws, which they hire on a daily basis, while some do odd casual jobs in the city. There are an estimated 15,000 rickshaws that ply in Agartala every day, though only about 4,000 are registered with the Agartala Municipal Council (AMC). There are about 11,000 odds unregistered rickshaws in the city, a sizable share of which are pulled by the Bangladeshi nationals. Few years back, the state government took a notice of the unprecedented trend of Bangladeshi nationals pulling rickshaw at Agartala. AMC decided to issue identity cards after thoughtful scrutiny and keep a check on a regular basis. On November 21,2003, AMC introduced the identity cards for the registered rickshaw pullers, till then the number of illegal rickshaw pullers has been in check. “Here, You cannot distinguish an Indian from a Bangladeshi as we look same, wear nearly same dresses and also speak the same language. So AMC decided to introduce photo identity cards for registered rickshaw pullers in Agartala and till now it has worked well," opined Sankar Das, the Chairperson of AMC.
The erection of barbed wire fencing along the Indo-Bangla border in Tripura has also played a key role to tone down the infiltration bids by Bangladeshi nationals. Besides over the year’s time, BSF has increased its strength in this frontier. “ When the border was porous, it was hard for our jawans to identify an Indian and Bangladeshi since they speak the same language and look same. Now the fencing has definitely made our work easier, the Bangladeshi nationals who used to sneak into this part on regular basis are rare and if they try our jawan catch them, moreover we have intensified our deployment along the border,” says P.G Sabastian, DIG,Tripura Sector of BSF. The Indian border guards, of late, have been concerned with the movement of petty traffickers across the border, and therefore increased its vigil.
The influx of Bangladeshi rickshaw pullers was also a matter of grave worry for the Indian rickshaw puller since they were to compete the Bangladeshis’ for a livelihood.
Rajib Das, an Indian rickshaw puller at Agartala said “ The Bangladeshi’s used to charge less fare for longer distances as they were sometimes not aware of the localities, which in turn used to effect us as some passengers used to prefer them. Now that they are less in number, we are earning more and why should they earn in our country, but the AMC officials are no more serious with the checking of cards”.
The tottering rural economy in Bangladesh has always forced its people in the bordering villages to sneak into neighbouring Indian states in search of livelihood.