Don't live in a make-believe world

Even so, we took a somewhat liberal view of Thursday's hartal following the government's could-care-less attitude to the opposition demands. But Saturday's dawn-to-dusk hartal, followed by a call for another 12-hour shutdown as being enforced today, only meant how reckless Awami League has become with hartal calls. Three countrywide 12-hour general strikes in five days, two of them reactive to injuries upon three AL leaders, including the Juba League chairman, amounted to punishing the people -- not the government -- as the opposition would like us to believe. If the opposition doesn't eschew hartal as the mainstay of its politics from here on, whatever public sympathy it has earned through the government's dismissive attitude towards it would be lost.

Having said that, we must be equally, if not more, critical of the police repression on the opposition as borne out by the news-photos. Pickets, including women activists, were beaten blue in Dhaka while BNP elements launched a wanton attack on the AL office in Bogra. A huge number of opposition activists were injured and picked up. There have been processions and counter-processions as there were clashes and counter-clashes leading up to physical injuries and damages wreaked on private and public property.

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What's alarming -- for the days ahead -- is the incendiary language being used by both sides. The prime minister in a public rally at Jatrabari said those who put a block to her roadmap (for progress) would be 'blocked' inside their houses. The government's heavy-handed policy is reflected by the vow that 'destructive acts' of the opposition would be tried under the Speedy Trial Act. The opposition, on the other hand, has vowed to relentlessly pursue its one-point agenda of toppling the government not waiting for the next electoral verdict. Sheikh Hasina says the BNP-led alliance government's days are numbered.

It is something very strange and somewhat amusing, too that both Begum Zia and Sheikh Hasina are claiming exclusive right to public sentiments being in favour of one at the expense of the other. Whatever they are doing they say the public are with them. But they must know what the people really want. They want, let there be no mistaking it, a responsible and constructive opposition and a democratically-run government that has respect for the opposition and gives space to it. In our judgement, both have failed to play their given respective roles. It is time they truly felt the pulse of the people and, for a change, acted accordingly.