To Hell With Hartals

As I sit here to write about hartals, in Kerala we are having a second hartal within a time span of 10 days. Luckily, the left parties under the leadership of CPI (M) and the other opposition under BJP have decided to conduct their hartals (in other parts of India it is called Bharat Bandh) on the same day. The hartal is observed against the petroleum price hike announced by the Central government. While there is no doubt that the petroleum price hike is excessive and needs to be protested, troubling people in that name through hartals is bluntly outrageous.

One of my friends points out to me that hartals were used during India’s independence struggle by the non-violent freedom fighters. It was a successful form of protest as in those days the produce of various economic activities in India used to go to the United Kingdom. Therefore when you protest using hartals, by not working on that day and by closing down your shops, you are preventing the United Kingdom from getting the benefits of the economic activity. So that made sense. But when you use the same form of protest now against our own Indian government, you should know that you are hampering your own prosperity as the produce of economic activities doesn’t go to any other country but to your own country and thereby to you, every single individual in India. So that makes just one sense – nonsense.

While political parties call for hartals they will make promises that they will not resort to violence or force anyone to close down their shops or prevent people from travelling. But they always fail to keep their word and will engage in all sorts of violence to frighten people and to force them to stay at home or to shut down their shops. And, keeping their word has never been a characteristic feature of Indian politicians; in fact they thrive on making false promises and void assurances.

What would be most nauseating is the claim that these politicians would make afterwards that the hartal was a grand success and people have acquiesced with them and stayed at home, by not going to work. Whereas the truth would be that the activists of political parties threaten all those who have ventured outside to go to work with violence. We have often heard of people who have got injured due to attack from party miscreants during times of hartals. If people stay at home during hartals it is only because of they are afraid of getting hurt and not because they approve of the reason behind the hartal call.

In addition to the physical harm that they give to the people, public property is often damaged by the activists of the political parties during hartals. It is imperative that we make laws that make the political party that calls a hartal accountable for the public property damage and get back the amount from them. However often political parties say that the public property damage is not been done by them, but by their opponents to damage their reputation. There is no need for the authorities to heed to this as whoever does the damage, accountability rests with that party that calls for the hartal and it is the risk that they take. These sorts of laws must be made by the legislature, which would mean the political parties. So there are no realistic chances of such laws coming up as all political parties would be wary of such a law as it would make them accountable for the public property damage they do during hartals.

In Kerala, today we are having the second hartal on the same issue from the Left Front and Bharat bandh from NDA. It must be noted that the CPI (M) of Tripura has decided not to have a second hartal on the same issue as they thought it would cause discomfort for the people. But no such common sense prevailed here in Kerala as the Left Front meeting that discussed whether to have a second hartal on the same issue found out that it is necessary to have that. MK Pandhe, the Polit Bureau member of CPI (M), on asking about the second hartal in Kerala, said that people of Kerala are “capable” of having two hartals. His comment must be considered a disgrace by all Keralites, I included, because we have been silent all these years on being imposed with a hartal that all have started making fun of us believing that we’ll never voice our concerns against the hartals. Kerala Chief Minister, VS Achudanandan has said in State Legislature that he has no prick of conscience on imposing a second hartal on Malayalees on the same issue of petrol price hike. But again, conscience is not something we believe Indian politicians have, isn’t it?

And now about some facts. The decision of the Central government to increase the price of petroleum products is shocking. It is often said that alleged losses of petroleum companies on account of increasing international crude oil prices is not true and it is more about decrease in profit than actual loss. But more appalling is Central Governments decision to abandon Administered Price Mechanism (APM) of petroleum products in India. From here on prices of petroleum products in India would be determined by the market forces of demand and supply. That would mean that the price of petroleum products in India would skyrocket if international crude oil prices increase rapidly. From now on Government of India will not indulge in setting the prices of petroleum products and petroleum companies would be free to set prices based on their whims and fancies. In the year 1997, the United Front government under IK Gujral, which was supported from outside by CPI (M) and Congress, initiated moves to dismantle the APM. CPI (M) didn’t make any protest against it then. It was the BJP government in the year 2002 that decided to deregulate the oil sector by dismantling APM. That would mean that neither the CPI (M) nor the BJP has any moral right to protest against dismantling APM that had their support when they were in power at the centre.

In short, all parties are in support of dismantling APM and thereby causing more difficulties to the common man. But dishonest politicians, just to create more trouble for the common man, will keep on calling for hartals on issues that they have no honest political stand for. We common men have no friends among the politicians and we are left in the lurch to fend off ourselves from those who indulge in our livelihood. It is time for us to raise a common voice against hartals. Let us say – to hell with hartals.