Delhi eyes on Dutch landscape

This story by Rupa Jha

Rupa is a desk editor with the Hindi section of the BBC in New Delhi.  After winning the ABU award for 2008, she visited Radio Netherlands Worldwide for a week to see how we did things over here.  These are some of her impressions after her first visit to The Netherlands.

“Holland is so much more than wooden shoes, windmills and tulips..” a friend said to me as I was getting set for this, my first visit to The Netherlands.  And after only a week here, I can say - so true!!

I thought The Netherlands would be like any other place in Europe and very different from India, my home country.  Little did I know, it was going to be such a different experience! Yes it looks clean, green and rich like many other European countries but the one thing which makes this place stand out is the bikes.  Everyone in this country cycles, men and women of all ages and classes.

Anybody who knows India at all would know that the bicycle in India is the transport of the poor, the hobby of the rich, and a medical activity for the old. Can you imagine the rich and the powerful in India riding a cycle to go to work?

Never -  not only because there is no infrastructure available for the cyclist such as cycle lanes and well functioning traffic lights, but also because the bicycle is a class divider.

A person with a bit of money owns a motorbike or scooter, and the moment they can afford it, they buy a car.  Indians don’t care about the old fashioned, environment friendly, poor man’s choice of transport.

Sometimes politicians like Rahul Gandhi or Lalu Yadav or Nitish Kumar do get on a bicycle - and the occasion instantly becomes news!  But here in The Netherlands, it’s simply unthinkable not to be able to ride or not to own a bike.  Politicians do it, high ranking diplomats, pregnant women, old pensioners, tiny children, even the Queen Mother famously did the occasional shopping for groceries on her bicyle.

There are 16 million people here and 18 million bikes, with more than a million bikes being sold in the country every year.

I loved to see all the well dressed men and women hopping on a cycle: men in business suits and women in high heels and expensive stockings. This scenario is absolutely unreal for Indian cities. Well, Indians do have many valid arguments for not using cycles – our roads are bad, our climate extreme, but really deep down, it’s all about status.

And in India, status means getting that car – climate change and carbon footprints notwithstanding – the bigger the better!