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Hartal, again?

True, hartal is an age-old democratic weapon of political parties to protest against misdeeds of the governments.

Kazi S.M. Khasrul Alam Quddusi
CHANGE is changeable. The mindset of our political leaders does not seem to have undergone any sort of change despite the crucifixion during two years of military-backed caretaker government. The people of the country have, however, been sort of relieved from the curse of hartal ever since.
The people must have thought that by now our political leaders would have become wise enough not to call suicidal hartals, which only hurts the national economy as well as the downtrodden. BNP's abrupt hartal call has, thus, taken the people by surprise.
Admittedly, the people of the country have little fondness for hartal though it is a democratic right. In fact, the people have seen so many hartals that they have long been raring to do away with it. People of various professions and foreign dignitaries have, thus, urged finding of alternatives to hartal.
TYue, hartal is an age-old democratic weapon of political parties to protest against misdeeds of the governments. However, its overuse in recent times had not only turned it grossly unpopular but also utterly ineffective. Hartal was used during the British period with good effect.
Dr. Ashraf and Dr. Alam, in a research article published in the Chittagong University Journal of Social Sciences, gave interesting information — based on newspaper reports — regarding hartals in various periods and regimes.
According to that study, only 15 days of hartal were observed during 1962-71 (East Pakistan), only 5 days of hartal were observed during 1972-75 (Awami League regime) and 59 days of hartal were observed during 1981-87 (First 7 years of Ershad regime).
Interestingly, however, 266 days of hartal were observed during 1991-96 (BNP regime) and 215 days of hartal were observed during 1996-2001 (Awami League regime). Though there was no hartal during the last caretaker regime, an end to this gratuitous hemorrhage of the economy is not in sight.
So many days of hartal after restoration of democracy in 1991 is indeed a great blemish on our political history, which is not only painful but also thoroughly unacceptable. The net loss in one day's hartal is aroundTk.500 crore. The stated study further reveals that gross financial loss because of hartals during 1991-2001 was Tk.1,83,465 crore. And the loss continued unabated as hartal was again on the increase those days.
So far, we have discussed the economic losses of hartals. As you know, social losses because of this political weapon were and are immense. As the communication network throughout the country gets blocked by picketers, people of different regions and walks of life face unbearable harassment, and even the critically ill or injured ones fail to reach hospitals in time and thus loss of life occurs. Meanwhile, horrific scenes of sabotage and vandalism on hartal days are nothing new in our context.
What irony! What a luxury of self-immolation! It is high time that leaders of our major political parties find alternatives to hartal. How long will they mess around? Hopefully, our political leaders and their gurus will be a little innovative so that the people do not get trapped in the vortex of cursed hartalsyet again.
Kazi S.M. Khasrul Alam Quddusi is Chair, Department of Public Administration, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. E-mail: khasru74@yahoo.com.