Strikes and Bandhs on regular interval creating nuisance , JUST IN PRINT , Sept 16 - 30 , 2013

According to Wikipedia, "Bandh, originally a Hindi word meaning 'closed,' is a form of protest used by political activists in some countries like India and Nepal. During a bandh, a political party or a community declares a general strike. Often bandh means that the community or political party declaring a bandh expect the general public to stay in their homes and strike work. The main affected are shopkeepers who are expected to keep their shops closed and the public transport operators of buses and cabs are supposed to stay off the road and not carry any passengers. There have been instances of large metro cities coming to a standstill. Bandhs are powerful means for civil disobedience. Because of the huge impact that a bandh has on the local community, it is much feared as a tool of protest. The Supreme Court of India tried to 'ban' bandhs in 1998, but political parties still organize them."

Everything is supposed to be closed on a day when a bandh is ‘called’ for. In college terms it’s similar to mass-bunking the class due to a problem with a lecturer. The reason I’m mentioning this is whether declaring bandhs justifies the cause howsoever noble?

In a country like India, everyday every single person has to deal with a lot of chaos, may it be getting into overcrowded trains or buses, or a power cut or a dead telephone line or ‘no network’ or problem with water supply, or the recent price rise. And here come historic days like these where a bandh is called adding to the list of our never-ending chaos.

To achieve our mortal ends, we have developed an obnoxious habit of proceeding to strikes, bandhs or some other means having crippling impact on the health of this country at a stage when she is passing through a very critical state of affairs. 

One minute bandh or strike can render the loss of hundreds of crores to the nation but we, despite calling ourselves true Indians, have never realized it simply because we are slave to the dictates of selfishness at the cost of the interest of nation. 

If strikes, "WE WANT JUSTICE" slogans, screaming, smashing cars, setting buses on fire, terrorising the common people solved problems, today wouldn’t be in the computer era. Even 64 years after the British left we are following the same approach that we used to get independence, but against whom!!? World changed, people changed, generations passed on, but our ways of approaching a situation like this didn’t. Funny, is it not, in a country like ours where there is no dearth of intellects and smart heads, a meaningful constitution, we are still made fun of, because we don’t know how to handle conflicts, problems or confusions. At a higher level we are amazing, take for example Mumbai growing out of 26/11, but at the fundamental level we are ridiculous.

In India the connotation of patriotism or nationalism has undergone a reverse change after Independence when the destiny of this poor nation was handed over to the native political vampires who sucked the blood of their motherland ruthlessly. By taking a resort to Strikes, where official work is suspended, cause not only the scathing inconvenience to the poor public but cause practical harm to the country itself and the elements, involved in such subversive activities, cease to be the true Indians and deserve to be declared anti-national calling for stringent punishment. 

Everyone who acts contrary to the interests of the nation whether he is a teacher or a lawyer or shopkeeper is an unwanted component of the system and hence deserves either to be set in order or to be dumped behind the bar. The market observing 'bandh', the customers stand subjected to the hard times; the doctors being on strike, the patients suffer badly and the lawyers being on the protest, the poor clients beat their heads against the walls and rub their hands. This is height of inclemency and ethical degradation. Why to go for all this non-sense after all? Don't we have some other means to rail-up the system? Our constitution places its people at the top and empowers them to pull down the system in elections if it is not functioning well. But we don't do that simply because during elections we fall a prey to the ills of nepotism, favoritism and several other petty considerations and directly or indirectly we create the miasmic system. Very recently the Bar associations all over the country proceeded on strike and their stance, for no bigger cause, culminated into the emergence of unremitting sufferings of many clients.

Most of the clients in Indian Courts are quite crest fallen and dejected because their cases were being adjourned sine die by the Honourable judges in the event of the non- availability of the Defense Counsels concerned.

At least the privately paid lawyers should have no right to go for strikes at the cost of those clients who have paid handsome amounts of money for the timely disposal of their cases. Point to be considered is that if the government impinges the rights of Advocates, the later should initiate some legal action against it. 

Their resort to strike is not going to make any big difference to the government. It rather adversely affects the poor clients who are otherwise waiting since long for justice. Most of the thankless souls feel that the best way to draw the government's attention towards their grievances or to protest against any move of the government is to call a bandh, strike or taking out procession in the streets. 

To strike silently in a civilized way or to come on the streets shouting and voicing anti-government slogans creating noise pollution is all the same for me because in both the gestures and styles of protesting is hidden a big loss of the country. Bandhs are a huge blow to the State's economy. This apart, normal life is thrown out of gear by these bandhs. 

Economic loss due to bandh (in crore):

13,000 according to FICCI
10,000 according to Assoc ham
3,000 according to CII

Maharashtra (estimated economic loss Rs 1,000 crore), Karnataka (Rs 725 crore), West Bengal (Rs 250 crore), Kerala, Orissa, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh (Rs 150 crore each) are among the worst-hit states. Though the stock market remained open, trading volume at BSE was down 52% to Rs 2,857crore against daily average of Rs 6,000 crore. Rail operations, especially in east, severely affected with 78 trains, 60 mail and 18 passenger, cancelled and 340 disrupted. At least 96 flights were cancelled across India, with at least 47 departures being cancelled in Mumbai alone. Over 62 lac commercial vehicles remained off road, according to trucker unions.

In 1997, the Kerala High Court ruled in a landmark judgment that forced bandhs were illegal. Let me go a step further to say that even peaceful and willing bandhs are also harmful. By cutting both the ways, the nation is propelled into the abyss of multi-dimensional crisis. The decision was upheld in 1998 by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by the then Chief Justice of India J S Verma. 

Again in 2010 one of the high courts declared bandhs "illegal and unconstitutional" as these violate the fundamental right of citizens. But political parties and organizations continue to call bandhs, disrupting public life and trampling the fundamental rights of citizens. The state governments also refrain from taking suo moto action against such elements as it does not want to rub off any organization the bad way for the reason best known to them. The governments of all states as well as the central power-house must try to understand the implicit dangers of these strikes by the responsible members of the system and enact some stringent law to stem the tide of this melodrama if, at all, the state and national mechanisms are serious about the well being of the common people. By not coming up with a strategic solution to the problem, the governments are in a way, encouraging these bands of strikers. 

It must be noted that in a rather laconic ruling, the Supreme Court of India had banned bandhs in 1998. Nearly a decade later, in 2007, the Supreme Court in another ruling had clarified that bandhs or complete shutdowns were illegal but strikes and hartals were not.

"You don't seem to understand the difference between bandhs and strikes. Bandhs are illegal [but] not strikes, which are only a way of raising objections," the court had maintained, dismissing the petition of a Chennai resident who had sought action against political parties that had called a "general strike" across Tamil Nadu on February 4, 2007 to press for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

Acknowledging the distinction between bandhs and strikes, it would be logical to deduce that some of the biggest Indian revolutions of the last century Gandhi's non-cooperation movement, the salt strike and Quit India movements were strikes and not bandhs. The 1974 railway strike in India which went on for 20 days and had 17 million workers participate in it, was clearly a bandh and thus illegal according to the SC ruling which came into effect later. Around the same time in 1974, J P Narayan led the students' movement in Bihar which gradually developed into a popular people's movement known as the Bihar movement. It was during this movement that JP gave a call for peaceful Total Revolution. JP's crusade against the "imperialistic" Indira Gandhi, which was to lead to Emergency and subsequently the formation of the first non-Congress government in India, employed a mix of strikes and bandhs. The most interesting feature about the JP movement was that here was a Gandhian who had participated in at least two of Gandhi's biggest mass movements against the British now trying to replicate a similar mass movement against a Congress government in independent India.

Strikes by doctors, lawyers, teachers or any other segment of the system is, in fact, a heinous crime and should be curbed with the rod of iron. The government should be keen on good governance and not exempt itself of any responsibility to counter this culture. 

Most importantly, organizations should realize that a 24-hour or a 72-hour bandh can never be a solution to their problems. It, on the contrary, creates more hurdles on the way of this developing nation which needs our loyalty on the practical lines. Mere lip-patriotism and bare slogans are not going to give anything solid to this country already suffering due to our incompetence, veiled disloyalty and unethical attitude.

Demands should be placed in other ways. Strikes and bandhs should not be encouraged by any political party. Bandhs and strikes are not the solution. A nation that is undergoing rapid growth cannot afford such luxury, especially when the bells of recession are ringing everywhere.

Siddhartha Shankar Mishra,

Sambalpur,Odisha