Two Wheels, One Mission — Bicycles empowering girls in Bihar and Zambia, a call-back to 19th century Suffrage movement

In a small village in Zambia, a teenager carries the key to her bicycle lock around her neck like an ornament. Her father, the leader of the hamlet frowns upon it. But it has little to no effect on her, because the bicycle was her key to freedom, and symbolic of the agency she now had over her life.

Similarly, a girl in her neighbouring village would deflate her cycle’s tyres every day, and bury the key somewhere far from the reach of her brother, to stop him from using it.

Why were these young women so territorial and proud over a seemingly modest mode of commute to their school? How is it related to Bihar, and how has something as small and insignificant as a bicycle paved the way for a broader movement of woman empowerment? Read on to find out!

Bihar’s Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana

Being one of the most impoverished states in India, Bihar is plagued with a large gender gap in school attendance. This gap in attendance in schools only grows with age. The enrollment of girls in primary school is satisfactory, largely due to the availability of primary schools and the introduction of schemes like the midday meal. However, distance remains a huge barrier in the hinterlands, pushing them further away from attending secondary school.

In 2006, the Nitish Kumar -led state government, launched the Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojana, a pioneering cash-for-kind program to empower girls through education. The program initially provided ?2000 to 14-year-old girls enrolled in 9th grade, enabling them to purchase bicycles. This initiative was designed to address one of the most significant barriers to education for girls in Bihar—long distances to secondary schools.

But, how profound were the implications of this policy intervention? In 2008, Professor Nishith Prakash from the University of Houston and Professor Kartik Muralidharan of the University of California San Diego embarked on a study to gauge the policy’s impact with support from the International Growth Centre (IGC).

Their research found that this bicycle program increased age-appropriate secondary school enrolment for girls aged 14-15 by 32%. It also reduced the gender gap in enrolment by 40%. Moreover, the number of girls appearing for and passing the 10th-grade exam rose by 18% and 12%, respectively. The success of this initiative highlighted the transformative power of providing a bicycle.

Inspired by the Bihar program's success, Professor Prakash later collaborated with World Bicycle Relief (WBR) and Zambia's Ministry of General Education to implement a similar initiative in the Southern province of Zambia.

After Bihar, why Zambia?

Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa that has made significant strides in improving access to primary education with near-universal primary school enrolment. However, the story, when it comes to girls in secondary education, is markedly different. The drop-off for girls, as they transition to secondary education is stark. According to the World Bank’s 2015 report ‘Policy Brief: Zambia,’ their enrolment fell to just 61% at the lower secondary level. The same report states that girls drop out of school at double the rate of boys in Grade 7 and triple the rate of boys by Grade 11.

A tough road to secondary school

Transitioning to, and completing secondary education is particularly challenging for girls, primarily due to barriers like school fees, long distances to school, and societal factors such as teenage pregnancy and child marriage. These challenges are even more pronounced in rural areas.

Additionally, this transition to secondary school often coincides with the onset of menstruation, which brings its own set of challenges. The lack of menstrual hygiene facilities in schools, coupled with the stigma and lack of awareness surrounding menstruation, further exacerbates the already significant gap in girls' education.

Nearly 98% of girls in their sample reported walking to school, spending an average of 110 minutes commuting just one way, as reported in a new study authored by Professor Nishith Prakash and his collaborators. Alarmingly, 35% of these girls reported experiencing sexual harassment during their commute, highlighting just how perilous a journey many face in their pursuit of education.

This intervention was introduced in Zambia, providing bicycles to girls in 100 schools across three districts, and the results were promising. Overall absenteeism dropped by 29%, translating to an additional five school days per year for girls in the Southern Province, where the average primary school student missed 18 days annually. Girls in the schools who received the bicycles were 38% less likely to drop out of school compared to those in the schools who did not receive the bicycles.

Post the success of this program, the United States Agency For International Development (USAID) awarded $3.5 million to fund bicycles for growth initiatives to increase access in rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia. Additionally, the Ministry of General Education (Zambia) scaled up the cycle program in several districts in Zambia.

Simply put, the bicycles in Bihar and Zambia gave young girls the agency of making choices for themselves. While the immediate benefit of these programs was providing the means for women to travel to school, the long-term impact reveals significant shifts in attitudes among both the women involved and the communities around them!

But did you know that the use of bicycles to provide women with this much-needed agency isn’t new and was actively instituted by women during the suffrage movement of the 19th century — a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States?

Corsets to cycles: The Suffrage movement & bicycles

In the late 19th century, during the American industrial revolution, a seemingly simple invention sparked a movement that would forever change women's lives — the bicycle. As the country experienced a ‘bicycle craze,’ the first wave of the women’s rights movement was gaining momentum. The bicycle quickly became more than just a mode of transportation; it became a powerful symbol of change and progress in the fight for women’s emancipation.

In fact, the introduction of the bicycle revolutionised women’s fashion, breaking away from restrictive corsets and long skirts that had previously hindered their mobility. Instead, women began to adopt more practical, comfortable clothing that allowed them to cycle freely. The image of the ‘new woman’ emerged — educated, sporty, and career-oriented — with a bicycle as her constant companion.

In 1895, at the age of 80, suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton predicted the power of the bicycle in transforming the lives of women. Having the ability to be self-reliant, often for the first time in their lives, would encourage them to be more courageous in other areas as well. While back then, their fight was for their right to vote in political elections, times have changed. Women have to fight different battles — some new and some old — to realise and utilise their potential. What has remained constant in this journey is the bicycle!

Susan B. Anthony, another suffragist leader further opined, “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.” Had she known that several decades later, this simpleton mode of transport would continue to improve the lives of young women in remote parts of the Global South, she would’ve been happy to her heart's content!

If something as mundane as access to mobility has historically brought such great results, what can be done to bring greater mobility for women in policy-making today?

Professor Nishith Prakash suggests that mobility needs to be thought of in a broader context. Mobility in the case of women isn’t just freedom to be able to go from one place to another. There are multiple actors at play, including their actual safety and the perception of feeling safe in an environment.

Cultural norms in most societies across the globe, and in India, automatically grant the power of key-decision making to men. For these archaic norms to be challenged, he suggests changes in curriculum from early childhood. Reiterating the importance of agency in making choices for themselves, there need to be jobs for them to want to step out of the confines of their homes.

And once they do, nothing can stop them from cycling away to their freedoms!

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