Editorial
Into the death tunnel
Opposition's total lack of concerns for public convenience and economy
Today begins the long drawn out version of a hartal, with 48 hours on Wednesday and Thursday opening out to weekend Friday and Saturday. Meaning thereby, the whole nation could come to a grinding halt altogether for 96 hours.
Economy comes to a standstill, daily wage earners are forced to starvation, students cannot take their exams and seriously ailing patients find it hard to get emergency medicare. The suffering of the people during hartal knows no bound indeed.
Hartal may appear righteous option especially when the ruling party doesn't allow the opposition space to ventilate its grievances. Even so hartal should be taken recourse to as the last resort, for no political party has any right to punish people for no fault of theirs.
But usually opposition in our country is used to calling hartal at the earliest opportunity before even trying and exhausting other valid options. For instance, we thought if the BNP has made it into a habit of attending parliament it wouldn't have a need for hartal.
Hartal as a means of protest and articulation of the demand of a political party in extra ordinary circumstances, though admissible, is however, an anathema in an independent democratic country. It shows a disregard for the institutions of democracy and people's wishes.
Since hartals are an imposition on the people, we should try to exempt the economy of the country, the industries, ports, hospitals and education institutions from the purview of hartal.
If a political party thinks it has a right to call hartal it must be equally sensitive to rights of those who do not want to participate in it.
Finally, we call upon all sides to exercise maximum restraint, so that vandalism and destruction of public and private property are scrupulously avoided and police refrain from committing atrocities.
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