From political rebellions to affordability: What trams meant to Kolkata

The origins

The instauration of trams successful assemblage Calcutta was portion of a broader British inaugural to urbanise and amended the city’s infrastructure. In 1803, Governor-General of Bengal Lord Wellesley’s Minute (document) connected Town Development sought to heighten nationalist wellness and infrastructure done municipality planning, with a absorption connected clearing bazaars, ghats, and burial grounds. The 1857 Mutiny, which shifted power from the East India Company to the British Crown, further accelerated this transformation. Academic Ranjit Sen highlights this displacement successful his work Calcutta successful Colonial Transition, stating, “From the 1850s, each avenues of concern were filled by British capital. From jute to railways, from tramways to steamship and electricity, the British superior was successful command.”

With unfastened drains covered and roadways improved, Calcutta was acceptable for its archetypal horse-drawn tram successful February 1873. Building connected this progress, Sen notes that the British established the Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) arsenic a joint-stock institution successful London successful 1880.

The inaugural trams rolled retired from Sealdah, traversing Bowbazar, Lalbazar, Dalhousie Square, and Hare Street, marking the commencement of a caller epoch successful transportation. The Kalighat tram depot, Asia’s oldest, was established the pursuing twelvemonth successful 1881. By 1884, Calcutta boasted a web of 8 tram lines, including routes similar Chitpore and Chowringhee.

Horse-drawn trams of Calcutta (Source: Calcutta Tram Users Association Archives)

Between 1881 and 1900, horse-drawn trams gradually transitioned to steam-driven models. According to Sen, the electrical proviso from the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation fueled further enthusiasm, prompting the CTC to present electrical trams successful 1902. Historian Sumit Sarkar, successful his book Writing Social History, notes that these electrical trams were among respective “significant improvements” successful the precocious 19th century, which besides included underground state lights, aboriginal telephones, centrifugal cars, and electrical lights and fans successful prime homes.

Interestingly, these developments were not constricted to Calcutta alone; trams besides emerged successful different parts of India. In Delhi, trams began operating successful March 1908, and by 1921, determination were 24 trams connecting Old and New Delhi. Madras (now Chennai) introduced horse-drawn trams successful 1877, followed by its archetypal electrical tram successful 1895.

Sociologist Meera Kosambi, in Bombay successful Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, argues that the Bombay Tramway Company Limited, established successful 1873, introduced its archetypal horse-drawn trams successful 1874, and electrical trams successful 1907. By the 1920s, trams had go indispensable to municipality infrastructure and wide transportation.

Historian David Arnold, successful his article The Problem of Traffic: The Street Life of Modernity successful Late-Colonial India, published by Cambridge University Press, highlights that by 1923, Bombay’s trams served astir 102 cardinal passengers, Calcutta’s trams accommodated 57 million, and Madras transported astir 18.5 cardinal residents.

However, the surge successful nationalist transport led to postulation congestion successful assemblage cities. Arnold notes that rising centrifugal accidents and postulation issues were attributed to respective factors: speeding, overcrowded nationalist transport, hazards from tram tracks, and poorly maintained roads. He observes that aboriginal 20th-century newspapers were “full of sensational accounts” of tragedies, including the infamous Chowringhee clang successful June 1922, wherever 2 racing taxi drivers collided with a cyclist and a Tollygunge tram.

19th Century, Calcutta (Source: Calcutta Tram Users Association Archives)

Another notable humanities relationship involves the clang that claimed the beingness of Bengali writer and writer Jibanananda Das, who is believed to person been struck by a tram adjacent Deshapriya Park successful South Kolkata. “He reportedly failed to announcement the tram contempt the operator sounding the bell. Some speculate it whitethorn person been an attempted suicide,” says Gupta. Tragically, helium died 4 days later.

Despite these challenges, trams remained a fashionable mode of nationalist transport good into the aboriginal 20th century.

Tramway workers: The unsung heroes

Over time, Calcutta tram workers became cardinal figures successful the city’s nationalist and governmental life. They fought for just wages and indispensable needs portion actively engaging successful broader governmental movements. As employees of a British-owned company, tram workers were viewed by Indians arsenic some ‘black servants’ resisting achromatic despotism and arsenic Indians opposing British imperialism.

In October 1920, the archetypal national of Calcutta tramway workers, the Calcutta Tramways Employees Union (CTEU), was formed pursuing a spontaneous onslaught that demanded amended wages, drinking water, regulated work hours, and latrines successful the depots. This radical was aboriginal renamed the Calcutta Tramways Workers’ Union (CTWU) successful 1927. Their power was truthful profound that a 1967 diary cited by Historian Siddhartha Guha Ray successful his essay Protest and Politics: Story of Calcutta Tram Workers 1940–1947 remarked,“Hence, whenever a governmental question takes spot successful the city, the Calcuttans look guardant to the tramwaymen for their imaginable relation successful the event.”

Tramway workers consistently went supra and beyond to service the nation. In 1943, amid a devastating famine successful agrarian Bengal, they organised structure and nutrient for millions fleeing Calcutta to flight hunger and disease.

Three years later, connected August 16, 1946, the Muslim League declared ‘Direct Action Day’ to emphasise their request for a abstracted Muslim homeland pursuing the British departure from the Indian subcontinent. This declaration triggered wide rioting successful Calcutta, marked by wide killings and looting. On this day, tram workers from a adjacent depot mobilised to support a girls’ assemblage nether threat, lasting vigilant until each the students were safely escorted out.

Gupta shares a gripping communicative from a tram conductor astir that chaotic day: “Amid the turmoil, Calcutta’s tram workers rescued injured individuals, some Hindus and Muslims, from the streets, providing them structure astatine the Rajabazar and Kalighat depots, on with aesculapian supplies for assistance.”

In March 1947, Calcutta was swept by yet different question of Hindu-Muslim rioting. Despite the economical strain from months-long strike, tram workers demonstrated singular resilience against communalism, marching done the metropolis with onslaught badges to assistance easiness tensions. “People successful general, particularly men from poorer sections, developed an unflinching religion successful the secular credentials of the Calcutta tramwaymen,” Ray observes.

Trams successful Independent India

Post-independence, discussions astir the aboriginal of tramways emerged. Purbasha Das, adjunct prof astatine the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology successful Gujarat, explains that “the nationalisation of nationalist transport systems successful India was an effort by the Indian authorities to streamline operations and regain power from backstage companies.” She notes that non-viability and operating losses successful Delhi, Bombay, and Chennai led to the discontinuation of trams successful these cities, arsenic seen successful Bombay’s closure of its astir century-old tram web successful 1964.

In contrast, Das believes trams persisted successful Calcutta due to the fact that they represented a romanticist imaginativeness of the city, aligning with its slower gait and the residents’ preferences. “It was besides precise overmuch astir nostalgia,” she remarked. By 1967, the Government of West Bengal took power of the CTC, which was afloat nationalised by 1978.

Following this, involvement successful reviving tram work grew arsenic consciousness of aerial contamination and rising fossil substance prices increased. “With a World Bank indebtedness successful the 1980s, 200 steel-body trams were introduced betwixt 1983 and 1989, and they’re inactive successful cognition contiguous alongside immoderate fibre-body trams from the 2010s,” Gupta explains. In 2013, the West Bengal authorities enhanced the work further by introducing air-conditioned trams connected prime routes.

Trams successful Gariahat Depot (Express photograph by Nikita Mohta)

Yet, the tram web has been connected a diminution implicit the past decade, and today, lone 2 routes remain. Gupta attributes this inclination to the dissolution of the CTC successful 2016 and its merger with the West Bengal Transport Corporation (WBTC). Several reasons were cited for discontinuing tram services, including their dilatory speed, postulation congestion, constrictive streets, and the necessity for flyovers and nationalist highways.

The extremity of an era

For implicit a period and a half, these carriages person ferried generations of locals, becoming an indelible portion of the city’s identity, but arsenic the West Bengal authorities plans to signifier retired trams, dissent is growing.

IT nonrecreational and tram enthusiast Sounak Sengupta says that “blaming trams is misguided,” pointing retired that they don’t lend to reckless driving oregon overcrowding. “Why does Kolkata conflict to support its tram strategy portion cities successful Europe, Russia, and Taiwan person successfully kept theirs operational,” helium asks.

The plight of tram riders — often little affluent — highlights broader municipality equity issues, raising the question of whether parked cars should instrumentality precedence implicit nationalist transport. Urban mobility adept Shreya Gadepalli says that each tram carries implicit a 100 passengers portion occupying minimal roadworthy space, dissimilar cars, which often clasp conscionable 1 oregon 2 occupants. “So who is truly causing congestion?” she asks.

Advocates for restoring trams admit challenges, specified arsenic tracks being successful the mediate of the road, but they fondly callback the days erstwhile trams had dedicated elevated writer tracks. “Even successful 2024, trams stay the slightest polluting signifier of nationalist transport, affordable for the mediocre and accessible for the aged and otherwise abled,” says Sanghamitra Dasgupta, a erstwhile teacher astatine Shri Shikshayatan School successful Kolkata. Having spent her aboriginal puerility surviving adjacent Deshapriya Park, she was a predominant tram user. Dasgupta besides highlights the sustainability imaginable of trams, suggesting that harnessing star and upwind vigor could marque them self-sufficient.

Trams connected elevated writer tracks (Source: Calcutta Tram Users Association Archives)

As the roar of speeding metros drowns retired the melodic clatter of tram wheels successful the West Bengal capital, conductors and drivers astatine the Gariahat Tram Depot transportation connected with their regular routines. In speech with Indianexpress.com, they fondly callback a clip erstwhile tourists, some section and international, eagerly awaited trams, spending hours gazing retired from down the grilled windows, soaking successful the city’s vibrant ambiance amid the lively chatter of chap passengers. They reminisce astir the days erstwhile filmmakers from astir the satellite flocked to Calcutta to seizure the charm of its iconic trams. Yet, a shadiness loomed implicit their nostalgia: interest for the city’s students who frequented College Street, for the sick and disabled visiting the authorities hospitals, and the economically little fortunate inhabitants who saved connected autobus fare by utilizing trams; trams that guided everyone to their last destination.

For some, the vanishing trams symbolised the erasure of Calcutta’s unsocial identity; for others, it represented the extremity of a cherished household legacy. “My begetter served the trams from 1964 to 1984, and I took it implicit from there” said Gavin Rozario, the past Anglo-Indian conductor of Calcutta’s tram service. His dependable trembled with emotion arsenic helium continued, “When I joined 40 years ago, determination were 400 trams and 55 routes. Now, arsenic I hole to discontinue connected October 31, lone 2 routes stay — Gariahat to Esplanade and Esplanade to Shyambazar — with conscionable 10 to 12 trams limping along. As I bid farewell, I fearfulness I’m not conscionable retiring, I’m witnessing the extremity of an era.”

Suddenly, a chap conductor interjected, urgency successful his voice, “Gavin! Speak successful a mode that makes them listen, that ensures the trams stay.”

Further Readings:

1. Calcutta successful Colonial Transition by Ranjit Sen

2. Writing Social History by Sumit Sarkar

3. The Problem of Traffic: The Street Life of Modernity successful Late-Colonial India by David Arnold

4. Bombay successful Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, 1880-1980 by Meera Kosambi

5. Protest and Politics: Story of Calcutta Tram Workers 1940–1947 by Siddhartha Guha Ray