Politics of hartal, politics with hartal

The politics of hartal — brutal government suppression of street level opposition cadres, mass arrests of opposition activists, police raid and blockade of opposition offices — is back. Also back is the cycle of confrontation and unending hatred.

Two hartals took place last month. The media was overwhelmed with anti-hartal sentiments expressed from all sections of the establishment, starting from prime minister, ministers, high government officials to business community leaders, newspaper editors, civil society leaders and so on. The message was identical, loud and clear — a call on the opposition not to resort to hartal considering the economic damage and public suffering it incurs.

The opposition should definitely be blamed for causing all the inconveniences and the presumed damage to the economy that come with hartal. But does the fault lies solely with the opposition? As our prime minister loves to say — every conflict has two parties. If the government was at all sincere, couldn't it avoid those confrontations?

While the prime minister expresses her desire to make Bangladesh a technologically advanced middle-income country by 2021, she has shown no interest in setting the basic precondition towards achieving the goal. She knows very well that, more than anything else, to move the country ahead, there is no alternative to stability and political reconciliation between feuding political parties. Our PM must know it well that evicting the leader of opposition from her home of 38 years is not the right way to promote harmony and political stability. In fact, if any government wanted to deliberately ensure that Bangladesh returns to the path of conflict and antagonism, this was probably the course of action it would have chosen.

Lots have been said about the economic loss incurred by a day-long hartal. The numbers vary from several hundred crore to many thousand crore taka. Even the lowest such estimate is astronomically higher than the current market value of the home the opposition leader was evicted from. The government should have been able to anticipate the hartal given the way the eviction was carried out — then why give the opposition party an issue to call hartal and cause such economic damage?

Of course, we also need to discuss why, against all the criticism and outcry from the media and the establishment, the opposition would keep on resorting to such a harmful act as hartal.

On July 7, BNP called a national protest by forming roadside human chains. Human chain is the most peaceful of all the tools of protest. There was no violence anywhere; no disruption of normal life was caused by anybody. Yet, the government, using brute police force, came down violently on the peaceful protesters. The protesters were not allowed to stand roadside.

Last month, BNP wanted to hold a rally to mark November 7th, what it calls the National Revolution and Solidarity Day. The government did not give permission to hold the rally at Paltan, nor at Muktangon. Even the previous day, the government allowed the peer of Char Monai, a religious fundamentalist leader, to hold a rally at Muktangon.

The pattern over the last few months has been like this — whenever BNP announced a rally/procession, the Awami League or its youth/student wing called a rally at the same time and place, and the government imposed the Section 144 rule and banned all rallies in the area. Thus, most opposition rally/processions were foiled. The opposition can rightfully say that if they cannot hold peaceful rally, peaceful human chain, peaceful meeting — what do they have left but to call hartal?

As an aside, it needs mentioning that this is the first opposition party in post 1991 Bangladesh that did not call any hartal within the first year of the government's tenure.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people were arrested on the day before hartal. What was their fault? They were not vandalising properties, burning cars, intimidating people — they were simply holding procession in support of the hartal. Since when did holding a peaceful procession become illegal?

We must also analyse the economic loss inflicted by hartal. Every Ram, Rahim and Abdullah seem to be throwing numbers to quantify the economic damage caused by hartal. But no one mentions the source of his or her data or any study from which they are quoting their numbers from. As far as the author is concerned, there has not been any research to estimate the economic loss caused by hartal.

The graph below shows CEIC data on manufacturing output growth and lack of negative impact on hartal on this growth.

While calling hartal is a political weapon, criticising hartal has also become a political tool lately. For some, this criticism is a tool to please the rulers and masters. For others, it's a tool to attract attention. And for some others, this is a tool to pave the way for another 1/11 style illegal power bid. When anyone makes a political statement about the economic cost of hartal, she/he needs to be asked for the source of the data. They should also be asked whether the cost of hartal is more than 3,000 to 7,000 crore taka the World Bank estimates Bangladeshi taxpayers will pay for electricity production to firms associated with the commerce minister under no-bid projects that have been legally indemnified?

The PM and ministers are talking relentlessly about the cost of hartal. Did our government analyse what proportion of the capacity of the existing international airports is being utilised before embarking on the 50,000 crore taka first phase of a new Bangabandhu International Airport? Or did they tell the country how much unnecessary cost the people incurred only to meet someone's whimsical wishes to change the colour of the aircrafts belonging to national career?

As regards public sufferings — does hartal make it any worse than the sufferings the city-dwellers undergo everyday? On any day it can easily take five hours for a round trip from Uttara to Motijheel, on any day one single business is easily on halt for 5 to 6 hours due to load shedding. And these are everyday occurrences. There have been talks about sufferings of sick people due to hartal. Do our government leaders know, on a regular day, what a sick man goes through to be transported from Shyamoli Pangu Hospital to Kaliganj, the other side of Dhaka? Can that suffering be worsened any further by hartal than, say, the prime minister's motorcade?

If our prime minister really wants to develop this country, if she really wants to remove these daily sufferings of people, her job is to create a congenial political atmosphere and bring the opposition to a consensus on development issues. Instead, if she decides on denying the opposition parties any legitimate space in which they can air their grievances; unfortunately, there will be more hartals.
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Rumi Ahmed is a blogger and writes on political and healthcare issues.