Editorial
Hartal should have been withdrawn
Totally purposeless
A withdrawal of the hartal called for today by the BNP, now that the government has stepped back from its plans for an airport at Arial Beel, would have paid the party good dividends. That Begum Zia and her colleagues have refused to do away with the hartal is regrettable. Of course, there is the general feeling that all the cases registered by the authorities in connection with the recent agitation in Arial Beel must be withdrawn if conditions are to return to normal. The BNP would have done better if it had served warning on the authorities on the need to ensure security for the inhabitants of Arial Beel by a quashing of the cases filed against 21,000 people. For the party to now say that the hartal will be underway unless the cases are withdrawn and unless the crises in the areas of gas, electricity and water are resolved is really to shift the goal posts.
A hartal in these times serves little purpose, seeing that it puts citizens, particularly daily wage earners, in a quandary. The economy, of course, takes a severe beating at a time when it should be flowing in uninterrupted manner. Apart from the hurdles put in the way of public movement, there is the grave damage done to education. School children, in many instances, are compelled to attend classes on their weekly holidays because a hartal has claimed one of their regular study days. Patients can neither be taken to hospitals nor cared for in hospital wards.
It is our appeal, to the BNP and to other political parties, that they abjure this culture of hartal in the greater interest of the nation. The BNP, whose earlier two hartals drew flak, must go back to the Jatiyo Sangsad and raise there the very issues it has long been talking about outside the House. It owes it to its constituents to speak for them in the House. Agitation in the form of hartals can only go so far. It is serious deliberations on public issues in parliament that are a measure of a party's commitment to democratic politics.
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