Why frequent hartals?

The brutal truth that has of late gained ground is that in our country gaining political power means gaining all means of minting money and commanding governmental machinery at pleasure to clear off any impediments that stand on way to authoritarianism. Conversely, losing power amounts to forsaking privileges of money plundering and risking to lose life and property at the retaliatory vengeance of the political adversary seated in the government. This is why the political parties run so wild to catch power.

Election is a vital democratic process. But the main political parties go awry to take any political lesson from it. This is because they are devoid of practising any democratic culture within the party. As such whenever results of an election comes out one of the two main political parties bound to lose the election comes up with the prepared version of statement -- election is rigged (subtly or grossly). It resolves to take to streets to topple the government. Both the BNP and AL are equally adept in showing off this undemocratic gesture. I remember a cartoon published in a weekly in 1996 that nicely summed up the psyche of the two chief political parties. The caption read: "Hunger for 21 years versus facing starvation for 5 years."

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The losing political party forming the chief opposition gets to building up strategies considering what is capable of disturbing the government in the most effective manner as judged from the viewpoint of the latter (government). The opposition finds the government is most allergic to hartals. And naturally the opposition takes it as its most favourite weapon to chastise the government.

Following the brutal killing of Shah AMS Kibria, the erstwhile Finance Minister and sitting MP, a rare luminary of Bangladesh, on 27 January by grenade the month of February witnessed a series of hartals with greater frequencies and lengthier stretch of duration (60 hours without break). There were other methods of protest, too, like human chains across hundreds of KMs, token hunger strike etc. operating in between the hartals to resent the killing. To supplement hartals, protest rallies by the AL with like minded parties were held but with very limited success as the law enforcers with armed BNP cadres tore these (rallies) up in lethal ways. Mentionably, the women picketers and processionists were clubbed by the ruling party cadres to set a new example of national ignominy. The AL also beat up during their rule the women demonstrators of the opposition but the perpetrators were law enforcers in preference to party cadres.

Hartal brings all round miseries to the nation. The most affected are day labourers who go workless all day long risking an empty stomach for their entire family. The export-oriented industries with a tight timeframe get totally upset. According to governmental version each day of hartal cost hundreds of crores of taka. Interestingly the leaders who all hartals and their counterparts who go wild to resist hartals are probably the least hartal vulnerable sections of the society who reportedly own enough money to roll in luxury and security amid non-working days too.

The question is why a government of our country gets so very perturbed by hartals? They (government) say hartals cause immense financial loss to the nation, sap the stability of the country, breed anarchy in the society and they are pledge-bound to set these destructive forces at rest. But the people are no longer that gullible to believe in government's lullaby. They have seen how deep the hand of government is dipped in corruption, nepotism, usurpation coercion etc that cause more harm and distress to the nation than the hartals.

The real answer is that if the government is fascist to the core it tends to do everything by force. It suffers from a phobia of conspiracy all around. This fear leads to exert itself to pre-empt any bid of the opposition that may grow strong to effectively challenge government's nonchalant course of action.

The opposition takes to progressive dose of hartals as other mild form of protests like debate, discussions, peaceful processions, token shutdown of business enterprises, token pen down strike, token hunger strike and the recent induction of forming human chains have been trifled away by the government. Besides the long standing governmental inaction to countrywide bomb and grenade attacks targeting pro-liberation, secular quarters, sky high price spiralling of essential commodities etc have offered the opposition to fall back on strikes comfortably.

But political disputes cannot be settled by calling hartals by the opposition and bullying these to the background by the government. A third alternative should be devised upon. Ours is a parliamentary democracy. We preach it through lips and we must learn to practice it in acts and deeds. The floor of the Parliament is the proper place to decide upon all sorts of differences between the ruling party and the opposition. It is not the force of muscle but the force of logic that should be valued most. To build this culture it is the ruling parties that should come first with the grace of accommodation and tolerance to the opposition. It is difficult, though not impossible, to break away from the old habit of obstinacy and overlordism. The long standing resentments of the opposition that they are not allowed to speak in the House, that they are denied proportionate representation in the Parliamentary Standing Committees including the post of Chairman and that the Speaker is partisan and docile should be redressed honestly and honourably by the government. Being guardian of the House the Speaker should be given sufficient constitutional power to stand bold and independent. Enjoying these privileges and honour it is apt that the opposition should not resort to the unwholesome game of muddying and muddling the decency, decorum and proceedings of this august body.

Presumably, it is hard to create an effective and meaningful Parliament as it needs, first and foremost, a basic change in the existing mindset of the main political parties. However, there is a silver lining in the dark cloud. It is still believed that both the BNP and AL have such saner elements in their ranks as may be used by the respective top leadership to moulding the Parliament anew in thoughts and deeds. Once the Assembly rises to be purposeful and positive, hartal as a political weapon will diminish into nothingness.

A R Shamsul Islam is Retd. Principal, Govt. Mahila College, Pabna.