Ban Bandhs!

Parties have a right to Protest but bandhs will only pile  misery for the common man – 

November 29, 2016, Times of India, Editorial

 (Note: Kerala has become the last remnant of communism in the world. It will also be the last to think of giving up bandhs and strikes. It looks it has become a habit for Keralites to resort to strikes for anything and everything to resister their anger, because anyone who uses his reason should know that it is an insult added to injury, especially to the poor who depend on their daily work for their daily bread. 

 A leftist government which boasts of being the defender of the  workers’ rights should be ashamed of what they are doing – compelling willing workers to stop work. They should rather learn from Japanese who work over time and produce more, not less, to demonstrate their protest. james kottoor, editor)

The call for a state-wide bandh in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura by the Left and allied parties, to highlight the common man’s inconvenience due to demonetisation, was a purposeless one. Long queues outside banks and ATMs which are out of money certainly validate opposition parties’ claims that implementation of the move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes has been pathetic. But bandhs further pile on the misery and offer no solutions. It’s as if people are buffeted by an economic bandh from the government and political bandhs from the opposition, all at the same time.

Political parties certainly have the right to demonstrate and protest peacefully. But this shouldn’t come at the cost of disrupting lives of common people. Parties enforcing bandhs should know that they have no right to come in the way of people who are pursuing their livelihood. Apart from the Left, other opposition parties including Congress observing ‘Aakrosh Divas’ have wisely chosen to protest against the government’s currency ban rather than enforce a Bharat bandh that could have brought normal life to a grinding halt.

Though the effect of Monday’s bandh was severe in Kerala and Tripura, parts of Odisha and Bihar, local traders in other states kept their shops open in defiance. The stoppage of a few trains in Bihar is deplorable. Such incidents result in a harrowing time for commuters. In 1998, the Supreme Court had upheld a Kerala high court ruling banning political bandhs. But the tradition of calling for bandhs continues. If people feel strongly about an issue, they will participate willingly enough in protests. No coercion is required for this. Bandhs do little except trample upon fundamental rights of citizens.