LICENCE

 LICENCE

The present generation of persons below 40 years of age may be surprised to learn the ‘LICENCE’  HAS HAD various ‘avatars’ IN INDEPENDENT India  Practically every domain of life needed such a tag [the licence] for day to day activity.

Times were when radio was a luxury and hardly two or three houses ever had a radio in a town. Quite often the radio was used for gathering daily news , listening to some music programme strictly governed by rules as to the content; it may shock the readers that All India Radio –the official broadcaster in India had banned the playing of harmonium in radio programmes. Curiously, radio stations were out of bounds for   cine songs; such was the rigid chastity adhered to in the lone news medium. They would broadcast dramas –purely as audio versions and occasionally cinemas as sound tracks. The alternative source for news was the Newspaper. With all the limits and limitations cited here, any household   using Radio [even for personal purpose] must procure a licence on payment of licence fee tenable for a period of 12 months. Using a radio without licence was a punishable offence , though those programmes were punishments in their own right. The fee was Rs 30/- per annum and a licence book was issued to the licencee as proof of valid possession. If my memory serves me right, one can pay the fee in two installments each valid for six months.

CYCLE LICENCE

Another restriction was use of bicycles only with valid licence for each bicycle. The licence was an Aluminium plate etched with period of validity say 2024 –I , 2Q024 –II meaning first and second half respectively. The licence was to be mounted visibly on the bicycle; invariably it was in the front brake metal link right below the handle bar. Cycles without valid licences were mercilessly confiscated and dumped in some municipal yard from where [after buying a licence]  one has to pick his/ her bicycles from a countless population of ‘look alikes’ by every reckoning –seat, seat cover, colour , physical damages in any structure. Retrieving one’s cycle was next to tracing one’s child lost  in some exhibition or mega festivals liberally crowded with several ‘look alike’ tonsured heads. The licence fee was about Rs 2/- per annum payable in 2 installments. Riding a bicycle by two persons was a punishable offence popular in local par lance as riding ‘Doubles’.

Animal drawn carts

In most towns- big or small, carts drawn by horse was common and sought after mode of local transport to reach bus terminal or railway station or other places like hospital for a faster travel , and for moving 4 or 5 members at a time. These were popular in vernacular as kudhirai vandi /tonga in northern India.  However, to operate that cart , the ‘driver’ / cart had to possess a licence of authority to ply. It was also an annual plan with facility of paying in installments suitably indicated on an aluminium disc  to be visible for inspection. In smaller towns, a facility of bullock-drawn carts was available [mattu vandi in vernacular] and they too had to obtain a licence for plying on the road. All horse drawn cart drivers were to wear a brass badge on the upper arm that read “Hackney driver” engraved in it. Sans that badge the person was liable for punishment of violation of traffic rules. The idea behind was only persons adept in handling the animal can take to streets without causing inconvenience all other modes of transit. Literally every mode of travel or entertainment had to possess an “an authorized status” by Licence.

Even pet dogs in houses required a licence to be rated as 'owned'; if not the pet may be captured and either killed or held in schakles. 

K. Raman