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OPINION

A Crime in the Whole Sale

A Senior Citizen
, The BTV in its pubtye opin I ion series proposes to discuss 5 the alternative to hart al". The ’ debate may seem necessary in the light of the realities. We have already gone through the hartal torture for decades now. We failed to do anything about it. The TV discussions may also turn out to be purely academic.
They say in one voice that hartal is a "democratic right". It is merely "inconvenient" tor the half of them currently in power. They also say the same thing about a bad law — a law which is repugnant to the principles of justice and jurisprudence. As long as the other half of them are on the "wrong" side of the fence, they simply dislike it.
I view hartal as a pure crime in the whole sale. Just as penal code's "wrongful confinement" is a crime in the retail. Wrongful confinement is a well-defined crime punishable by law everywhere. We have it in our penal code. It is a cognizable offence. Both the police and the confined (when he escapes) can sue the offender.
What does hartal do to us for a full-day or for half of a day? It wrongfully confines us. It implies : a) my father is in death bed at Comilla. I cannot go to see him. I can't cover the distance on foot from Dhaka; b) My brother died today at Rajshahi. I can’t see his face for the last time. He will be buried before I reach Rajshahi tomorrow evening: c) My wife is in hospital 10 miles away from my nouse. I am too old to walk the distance or to send her home-cooked food in time; d) I have a sudden heart attack. I can't be taken to the hospital though my friendly neighbour has a car. Out of the Inadequate fleet of ambulances, some are on "special duty" during hartal hours on high rent for a special kind of urgent trips of the super-rich; e) I reached the airport in the morning from the other end of the earth after two sleepless nights and 30-hour air Journey. I can't go home for another 12 hours or 40 to 50 more hours if I have to go to Chittagong. SunamganJ or
Panchagrah; IM am a mason's assistant on a daily wage basis. I can't go out for work and am deprived of the day's wage and so of the day's bread; and g) I am >a rickshaw-puller or a baby-taxi driver. I can't earn my bread. If I am desperate, my vehicle is broken. The owner penalises me and withholds it from me for all future.
Whose "democratic right” does a hartal serve? Of the 99 per cent? Of the 51 per cent? How about the right of the one per cent then? Or of the 49 per cent? That one to 49 include those who want to go out to earn the day's bread, to save life, to be at the side of the dearest dying. How about the rights of the few individuals who want just to move freely in any case? I am reminded here of J S Mills's famous words: "If the whole of mankind minus one were of the one opinion and one individual was of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that individual than he. if he had the power, would be in silencing making.".
No doubt, they now silence the dissidents, the minority. But here in our hartals, it is not "opinion" but life and bread. Here in our luckless backward country, it is given to the very few to express opinion. The vast majority have no doubt their own individual opinions, but they are mute. They have little or no power to express their opinions.
What Justification there to wrongfully confine and prevent people from doing their essential and emotional duties? Yet all of them claim that hartal is a "democratic right”. Is it? I strongly, totally and irrevocably disagree. I am no theorist — political or otherwise. Though I have quoted J S Mill. I do not normally accept anything and everything Just because so and so great thinker had said that. They too contradict each other and sometimes even their own selves. I am a hard core "common-sense" person. If a new Mill or a new Laski appears to
’4Me all dlafedticM-to Justify hartal in the parycuiar political circumstances bPa less developed their world country like ours. I would reject that outright.
There is no law to prosecute the hartal-callers or picketeers for wrongful confinement. Those who are currently "inconvenienced” by hartal shall not enact any such law, for they themselves shall need hartal in the future. After each hartal, the callers thank the "people" for their "spontaneous cooperation". This is not merely a cruel joke to the numerous sufferers but Is nakedly shameless, to say the least. If hartals are so spontaneous, why then do picketing. why burn cars, why stone buses, why break rickshaws, why wait with bombs at road corners and so on?
Yes. there is "spontaneous" support from employees with fixed salaries. They also bless callers when the hartal-day precedes or follows a weekend or a public holiday. They get an extended holiday to visit home and kins in far-away places! Who else are the hartal supporters? They are the ones who have been deprived of benefits enjoyed during a previous regime due to measures taken by the current regime to patronise only their own men!
Even if the two classes mentioned above constitute the majority of the people, would there be any Justification to force the minority to face crises of various kinds noted earlier? In my humble view, the only "alternative to hartal" is to have a law providing for the arrest of the hartal-callers and picketeers and sue them in court for restricting the freedom of others and for wrongfully confining people in their homes. That will never be as long as our politics remains what it is now and. In fact, has almost always been. A great man once said: "Democracy does not give any right to destroy democracy." How wrong he would have been if he were living in Bangladesh today!