Editorial
A tense hartal passes off
What purpose did it serve?
The dawn-dusk countrywide hartal called by the BNP yesterday has passed off, but not without generating heat and tension. Several opposition activists were arrested including some top ranking BNP leaders in the capital city. There were sporadic clashes between the police and the pickets, but no major incident of violence was reported till the time of writing. The presence of the law enforcers in the Dhaka streets was huge and overwhelming and they used batons to prevent hartal supporters from taking control of the situation at different points. It was almost a repetition of that familiar police versus pickets skirmishes that we witnessed many times during hartals in the past.
Regrettably, after 40 months of hartal-free life, it has erupted once again, and one hopes not as a signal of any more recurrence of it with political parties behaving sensibly, wisely and pragmatically from here on in greater national interest.
This hartal after a long lull has actually brought to the fore the need for mending relations between the major political parties to a working level. They might have differences of opinion on and approach to national issues as they are only expected to. At the same time they must work to avoid getting into a breaking point through a hartal mode again which a lose-lose proposition for everybody. For it is the people who feel the brunt of it, their livelihood suffers and the economy takes a hit.
The political parties have to face up to the fact that hartal does not pay and is always counterproductive. People remain indoors-fearing vandalism and not out of sympathy for any party. So nothing can be more delusional than to think that a hartal, having no specific agenda catching people's imagination is observed spontaneously in any sense. To tell the truth, popularity rating of both the opposition and the ruling party goes down following a hartal because of the resulting confrontational and tense situation.
Let the political parties, therefore, put their egos aside and take bold step to come out of the hartal culture once and for all. That will be a signal contribution to the brightening of Bangladesh's future underpinned by the strengthening of democracy, the national economy and, above all, its image. This will lead to greater stability, investment in creative pursuits and sustainable prosperity.
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