Indian schoolgirls are leading a silent bike revolution

Nibha Kumari, a resident of Bihar, India’s poorest state, recalls how a bicycle changed her life when she was 15 years old.

For two years, she has cycled two hours a day from home to school and cram school, six days a week, using a bicycle provided by the state government for the round trip.

“If I didn’t have a bike, I don’t think I would have finished high school. It changed my life,” said Nibha, now 27.

A farmer’s daughter in Nibha’s Begusarai district was sent to her aunt’s house 10 kilometers (6 miles) away to attend a nearby primary school. Traveling is a challenge for girls, and public transportation is unreliable.

When Nibha returned to her hometown to attend high school, she hopped on her bicycle and traveled through the rough country roads to get an education.

“Girls have gained a lot of confidence after starting using bicycles to go to school and attending coaching classes. Now, more and more are starting to go to school. Most of them have free bicycles,” said Bhuvaneshwari, a health worker in Begusarai Kumari said.

She is right. New peer review study An article published in the journal ScienceDirect reveals extraordinary insights into school-going children and cycling in rural India.

Research by Srishti Agrawal, Adit Seth and Rahul Goel found that the most significant growth in cycling in India has occurred among rural girls – more than tripling from 4.5% in 2007 to 11% in 2017 – and falling Gender gap in this activity.

“This is a silent revolution. We call it a revolution because in a country with huge gender inequality in terms of women’s mobility outside the home, there has been an increase in cycling among girls, especially cycling,” Agra Ms. Val said.

Since 2004, the state’s free bicycle distribution program has mainly targeted girls, who have higher dropout rates than boys due to household chores and long walks. This approach is not unique to India – evidence from countries such as Colombia, Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe also shows that bicycles are effective in increasing girls’ enrollment and retention. But the scale here is unparalleled.

Three researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Narmonji Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai examined the effectiveness of state-run schemes that provide free transport services by analyzing the transport patterns of school-going children aged 5 to 17 through a national education survey. bicycles and test its impact on cycling rates.

They found that nationally, the proportion of students riding bicycles to school increased from 6.6% in 2007 to 11.2% in 2017.

The number of people cycling to school has doubled in rural areas over the past decade, while remaining stable in urban areas. India’s urban roads are notoriously unsafe, and the low number of people cycling to school in cities is linked to poor traffic safety and more cars on the roads.

India’s cycling revolution has been most pronounced in rural areas, with states such as Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Chhattisgarh leading the growth. The populations of these states are comparable to some of the largest European countries. Research has found that cycling trips are more common in rural areas than in urban areas.

India did not start reporting cycling for the first time until the last census in 2011. However, more rural residents ride bicycles (21%) than urban residents (17%).

In addition, more men (21.7%) than women (4.7%) ride bicycles to work. “Compared to the international environment, the gender gap in cycling is the highest in the world,” Ms Agrawal said.

American suffragist Susan B Anthony once famously said that the bicycle “has done more to liberate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a sense of freedom and self-reliance.”

The researchers wanted to know whether women would ride fewer bikes as they age due to reduced job opportunities and labor force displacement. Nibha stopped riding her bicycle after getting married and moved to her in-laws’ house. While she still travels while training to be a teacher, when asked about commuting she simply says: “I don’t need a bike anymore.”