Kolkata Rickshaws
by Robert Wade Photography
In 2009 I worked on a project enabling various NGOs in Kolkata to work with photographers to build a library of images that they could use to publicise their work. It was a symbiotic relationship allowing the NGOs to gain an amazing library of images for no cost while allowing the photographers to work very closely with the people and communities served by the NGOs. The following work was for The Calcutta Samaritans.
The government of West Bengal state had described the jobs of the rickshaw pullers as ‘inhuman’, ‘barbaric’ and ‘despicable’. Pointing out that there should be no place in the world today, for ‘human horses’: men with bare feet pulling others for 18 hours a day in the heat and the rain, for just a few rupees.