About the Author and Summary

About the Author: P. Sainath

Palagummi Sainath is an Indian journalist and photojournalist who writes about social problems, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermath of globalization in India.

• He was the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu. He has also written for The Telegraph (Kolkata), the fortnightly Frontline and the daily Business Line (Chennai).
• This essay is taken from his book Everybody Loves a Good Drought, a collection of ground reports from India's poorest districts.

"Where There Is a Wheel" is a piece of reportage: a first-person news feature based on the author's visits to Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu. It reports how cycling became a social movement for rural women, tied to a literacy campaign.

[Exam Tip] — The title echoes the proverb "Where there is a will, there is a way". Here the wheel (the bicycle) is the way to freedom.

Summary, Part 1: A Social Movement on Wheels

Cycling as a movement. In Pudukkottai, one of India's poorest districts, rural women chose cycling as a way of "hitting out at their backwardness" and breaking "the fetters that hold them". In eighteen months over 100,000 rural women, most of them neo-literates (newly literate), learnt cycling. Leaving out girls under ten, that is over one-fourth of all rural women in the district. Over 70,000 took part in public "exhibition-cum-contests".

Voices of the women.

• Jameela Bibi: "It's my right. We can go anywhere. Now I don't have to wait for a bus." She ignored the dirty remarks.
• Fatima, a secondary school teacher, cannot afford a cycle (over Rs.1,200), so she hires one for half an hour every evening: "There is freedom in cycling… I can never give this up."
• Jameela, Fatima and Avakanniammal, all in their early twenties, have trained scores of other young women.

Who cycles? Agricultural workers, quarry labourers, village health nurses, balwadi and anganwadi workers, gem-cutters, school teachers, gramsevikas and mid-day meal workers. Most are neo-literates. The literacy drive, Arivoli Iyakkam ("Light of Knowledge Movement"), used this energy. Every "neo-cyclist" saw a link between cycling and personal independence.

Summary, Part 2: Arivoli and Sheela Rani Chunkath

Kannammal's view. N. Kannammal, Arivoli central coordinator and a pioneer of the movement, says the main thing was the confidence it gave women and the reduced dependence on men. Women cycle four kilometres to fetch water and cart provisions on their own. At first they faced "vicious attacks on their character", but Arivoli gave cycling social sanction. Kannammal herself, a science graduate, had never before found the "courage" to cycle.

The training camp. At Kilakuruchi village the learners came in their Sunday best. Cycling offered "a way out of enforced routines, around male-imposed barriers". They sing Arivoli songs: "O sister come learn cycling, move with the wheel of time…" Those trained come back as unpaid "master trainers", and the cycling has enriched the literacy movement.

The brainchild of the collector. The idea came from the former district collector, Sheela Rani Chunkath. In 1991 she:

• trained female activists so that literacy would reach women in the interior;
• included mobility in the literacy drive, because lack of mobility undermined women's confidence;
• pushed banks to give loans for women to buy cycles;
• made each block accept specific duties in the drive, and gave it her personal attention.

First the activists learnt, then the neo-literates, then "every woman". This caused a shortage of ladies' cycles, so women rode gents' cycles. Some even preferred them, since the extra bar can seat a child.

Summary, Part 3: The Rally, the Economy and Self-Respect

International Women's Day, 1992. Over 1,500 women cyclists, with flags on the handlebars and bells ringing, took Pudukkottai by storm in an all-women cycle rally.

The men. S. Kannakarajan, owner of Ram Cycles, saw a rise of over 350 per cent in sales of ladies' cycles in one year. The figure is probably an underestimate, because many women bought gents' cycles and he was cautious, fearing the author was a sales-tax agent. Not all men were hostile: Muthu Bhaskaran, a male Arivoli activist, wrote the cycling song that became the movement's anthem.

Manormani, 22, a quarry worker at Kudimianmalai, trains her co-workers: "Our areas are a little cut off… Those who know cycling, they can be mobile." In one week in 1992, over 70,000 women displayed their skills. An impressed UNICEF sanctioned fifty mopeds for Arivoli women activists.

Economic effects. For women selling produce in nearby villages, the cycle cuts time wasted waiting for buses, leaves more time for selling, enlarges the area they can cover, and can increase leisure. They no longer depend on male relatives to reach the bus stop. A young mother may ride with a child on the bar, produce on the carrier and pots of water hung behind.

Beyond money. Yet the author warns against stressing economics above all. The real gain is self-respect. Fatima says: "What money do I make from cycling? I lose money… I hire one every evening just to feel that goodness, that independence." The author now sees the humble bicycle as a metaphor for freedom. Kannammal calls it "a Himalayan achievement, like flying an aeroplane".

Postscript (April 1995). The craze continued, but many women could not afford cycles (now about Rs.1,400), and a new, younger generation had missed the first round. Still, Pudukkottai remains unique for the proportion of women who cycle.

Central Idea

The essay shows how a simple machine became a tool of social change. For the neo-literate women of Pudukkottai, the bicycle meant:

• mobility: freedom from waiting for buses or male escorts;
• independence and confidence: breaking "male-imposed barriers";
• economic gain: more time, more villages, more income;
• above all, self-respect, which Fatima values even though cycling costs her money.

Sainath also shows how people's initiative and good administration (Sheela Rani Chunkath, Arivoli, bank loans, UNICEF) can work together. Literacy and mobility strengthened each other.

[Exam Tip] — 2025 asked (4 marks): "What are the measures taken by Sheela Rani Chunkath to improve literacy and mobility?" List four: trained female activists, added mobility to the literacy drive, got banks to give loans for cycles, and assigned duties to each block with personal attention.