Name: MD. Ibrahim ID: 1020486030 Eng105.14 Weapon against innocent and country

Hartal has been used as a political weapon against Government ever since Mahatma Gandhi invented it as a part of nonviolent and peaceful against the Colonial rule of the British. The general public participated in those hartals and had resulted in raving success. Even though hartals against the Pakistani rulers from 1947 to 1970 when this region was East Pakistan and Ershad Government at the time of 1990 in Bangladesh was very popular and mass people supported those hartals. But now hartal is one of the deadliest weapons in Bangladesh used to press political demands. The most common phenomena associated with hartals are violence, deaths, injuries, people burned alive and destroying public and private property. So hartals should be banned by law. Hartals are not giving our country anything but violence, killing innocents and destroying our economy.

Hartals are violent and massive riots. During hartal, all institutions (without health care and a few) are closed. The entire pulse of the country or city cut off. Workers cannot go to their work place and students see canceling of their classes. The impact of the hartals in education sector and poor people’s life is massive. Students cannot go to their class and give exams, so they have to face session jam and losing their important days. In most of the hartals some people died or badly injuries. In last five months around 250 people died and a large number of people injured. Even some children are died and injured in the mass of hartals. Political parties are using school boys and women to make violence by giving them some money. What a family will do when their only income source stopped by killing their family member? What will be the situation after losing her husband of a woman? What if children lose their father and what if parents lose their sons in the violence of hartal? We do not have proper answer to those questions. If the hartal is constitutional right, does our constitutional right give the political parties to kill innocent people and destroying many families? No. So all political parties should stand forward to pass a bill to ban hartal.

The net loss in one day’s hartal, according to a study published in the Chittagong University Journal and Social Science, is around TK. 500 crore. The study further reveals that gross financial loss because of hartals during 1991-2001 was TK. 183,465 crore. Did we ever realize where our economy is going due to hartals? From birth of Bangladesh it faced almost 1200 days of hartals. No one knows what is the actual lose in our economy due to hartal but everyone knows it is very huge. In RMG sector our country get highest foreign currency but this sector is facing very big problem because of hartals. What if foreign buyer shifts their interest from Bangladesh to other country? Thousands people will be unemployed again and Bangladesh will lose their best sector to earn foreign currency. Every business sector is losing their profit and investment due to hartal. Vehicles are fired in hartal day even burning people alive. In the era of Globalization there is no way to take hartal as the right. This is the era of economic and social development. This is the era of taking challenge to build new and innovative things, not to burn and destroy assets.

General strike is legal in every democratic country. But breaking or burning and standing or running car with passengers, throwing cocktail at any person or police personnel, resisting workers from going to their workplace and causing violence in the name of strike cannot be legal by any means.

Some might think that hartal is their constitutional right and there is no need to stop hartal. But what is the Article-37 actually said? The Article says, “Every citizen shall have the right to assemble and to participate in public meeting and processions peacefully and without arms, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interests of public order or public health”. But we, the general people do not understand that to what extent this article fits with prevalent hartal. In our country in the absence of any specific judicial interpretation of Article-37 political parties are calling and claiming hartal as their right ignoring public interest, health and life. But in India the Supreme Court has given some extraordinary interpretation regarding the constitutionality of ‘Bandh’ or ‘Strike’. The political parties of Bangladesh do not have any intention to make hartal as a violence activity so ban it or make it nonviolent. Our political parties (mainly BNP and AL) do not agree with anything but they are all agree with only one thing ‘ Hartal is a constitutional right’.

It is high time for the politicians to change their outlook. The politicians should understand that there is no meaning to kill or burn innocent people and destroying our economy and property. We are living in 21st century. We should keep ourselves up with the pace of the world. Hartals are never wanted and never necessary. In an independent country it is only a weapon to hurt the nation and make mockery of people’s expectation.

References:
Ullah, S.M.S. (2013, June 02). Hartal culture in Bangladesh. The Daily Sun. Retrived from http://daily-sun.com/
Barman, B. (2013, April 23). Hartal should have no place in our political system. Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.dhakatribune.com/