Kick Not the Stomach of the Source of Power

Hartal, October 27, 2013. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

There are many who will say this country is going to the dogs. A few will say it already has.
Here the educated tell lies. Here the uneducated resort to falsehood.
The danger is that both the educated liar and the uneducated fibber know that some, often millions, will believe them.
It is most alarming that a large number of people believe they are telling the truth.
Through such intended and accidental lies a civil servant can be promoted to the highest office, a teacher can become a professor, a politician can straddle the highest seats of power. But the least harmful of the human species have to bear the brunt, again from the frauds and the fabricators.
While we dialled the numbers, while we pondered whether it was best to let the phone ring because the mind was a blank, while we severed the tendon of political opponents, while we hacked them to kingdom come, while we set trains and buses on fire, while we attacked the law enforcers who opened fire in defence, while we brought out parades claiming our respective successes in this critical hours of political mistrust, bizarre inventions that belies facts, and dishonest propaganda, there was a photograph in The Daily Star that caught my eye: a rickshaw-puller almost crashing onto the pavement as he runs for his life in the face of a barefaced show of bravery by a pro-hartal element last week.
Rickshaw-puller's mistake: He had not saved enough money to last his family for the three days of hartal, whatever it means nowadays, as there are a lot more vehicles on the road than even a year or two ago. So he had to bring out his rickshaw to earn his pot of rice, no cliché that.
The brave picketer's responsibility: To prove his unflinching loyalty to his party so that he may make material gains now and in the future. So, he picks up a brick or a stick and charges at the beyadaab.
As a dent to the cause of the hartalists, at that very precise moment, when the well-to-do political activist was attacking the genuinely poor rickshaw-puller, who knows not his boat from his sheaf of paddy or from his langol, there were literally hundreds of motorised vehicles plying on the road, and there were indeed thousands of other rickshaw-pullers pulling for their loved ones all over the country.
Gone are the days when hartal was a public expression of dissent on the incumbent government, when even rickshaws did not ply on the road, fish-meat-vegetable markers were shut, factories wentsilent, offices were no-go and children did not play on empty streets. Nowadays, except vehicular traffic and almost all private cars, educational institutions, and shops that are not selling food and medicine, a lot many more establishments are open compared to even the 1990s mass movement. It is more a need for safety than any allegiance to a cause.
If factories belonging to those who support the hartal can remain operational, if their private offices can continue to operate internationally, if passengers and crew can avail flights by misusing the immunity of ambulances, in none of which the rickshaw-puller has a stake, why cannot he pull his rickshaw?
We have seen political leaders avail motor cycle rides on hartal days, for speed and convenience yes. Did anyone dare brickbat that motorcycle? Then why cannot he pull his rickshaw?
We have seen political leaders attend their important non-political assignments in spite of the hartal called by them, then why cannot he pull his rickshaw?
If we have to answer two questions with one word, the answer to both would be the same:
1. Who does not benefit from a hartal?
2. Who suffers the most in a hartal?
If we have to answer two more questions with one word, the answer to both would still be the same:
1. Whose development is written in large font in the election manifesto of our political parties?
2. Whose plight do the political manifestoes call for mitigating?
We often talk on sour (read talk) shows and even across our dining table and at tea stalls of national referendum on matters that prick the nation? I propose let us have a referendum on whether our political parties can call a nation-wide shutdown just by the snap of a finger. Let me ask you two more questions, the answer to both should be the same, that is, the source of the power of our politicians.
1. Who should decide whether a hartal can be called or not?
2. Who should decide whether a hartal called can be violated or not?
Politicians must think of other novel means of protest than enforcing a blockade, for which people's support and even their own selfless patronage is not spontaneous or ensured. If we believe that people are the source of power, then let every political party put forward their plans for development, let them be widely publicised through our half-a-century TV channels and a dozen radio stations and a thousand newspapers. Let the people decide.
They can think on their own. The child of fisherman is now studying in a university. The daughter of a peon is aspiring to become a doctor. Our villages have produced MBAs, civil servants, university teachers, and business magnates. The son of a Class IV employee is a colonel in the army. The daughter of a tea-shop owner is a college teacher. The son of a domestic bua is leading his university class in business administration.
If these poor illiterate people could have the wisdom and blessing to educate their children at and above par with the richest of the rich, do they not have the sagacity to decide which local leader would best serve his or her interest. Let the people be the judge of our destiny. Let us not kick his stomach on a hartal day, which expression exudes from a famous Banga phrase.
People may support a cause, on political grounds it may be, but they do not support hartal any more. Times have changed; our politicians need to change too.