The other day I recieved a forwarded SMS from a friend of mine with the following message:
" English man subha uthkar bolta hain-Good morning.
Hindu says : Suprabhatam
Muslim: Salam
but aj kal subha uthkar Mamta Banerjee Bolti hai: aj bangala bandh hai...!! Happy Hartal"
For a moment, I could not but laugh out loudly. But an instant later, it no more seemed funny. And it should not either. And for all those who do not understand the signuficance of the sms here's a list of .. well... what should I call it- poltician-declared-public holidays in Kolkata last December onwards: two 12 hour bandhs plus one 24 hours bandh and then one 48 hour bandh for various issues and various poltical parties in 31 days of December and then once again a Bandh on the 8th of January! Okay, and this list doe not include the endless number of processions and things like road blocking.. protest... all that one can think of to disrupt the life of the city and irritate just about everyone!
I understand full well that the issues the parties take up are serious and that they need to be addressed, and its not just one Miss Mamta Banerjee but Bandh is a strategic tool of peaceful mass protest, but then a simple fact is, a bandh is supposed to show that the certain issue has so much support from people that people are going on a strike till their demands are met, but the truth is people do not come out of their houses during bandh- not exactly becaus ethey support the cause or anything but simply because they are scared they might be stopped on their way and they would have to face various troubles and hazards which is not rare either! So its a "forceful" espousing the bandhs demand. And for that matter there is a certain section of the population who are not even aware of why this strike has been called!!
Kolkata's annual calendar has hardly been bandh-free for years now and finally,now that the ruling party is taking steps to curb the number of such abrupt halts... the opposition seems to be reluctant.
I am not a poltical or even social expert... but as a layman- as an young student of both the city and the country, I just want to ask one question- is bandh the only peaceful way to go about it? I only know nothing is absolute, so there must be alternatives. And all I know is, it is high time such alternatives are adopted because there are professions other than POLITICS in the city.. in the country, in which having a 'bandh-day' is neither helpful nor desirable... and there are certain people like daily labourers for whom a day-off implies -a fast.
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2 comments:
I think we should have right to sue those who propogate band for the recurring economical losses...
Yukk... the whole TATA case was just to garner publicity...nothing else. Come on one can not make a factory on thr barren Laddakh land..cause it need other things for support. But Mamata ke mamata to andhi hai. What must be looked is that now landless farmers get adequate land in other parts, and should have other sources of income. But...Buddha, is too buddhu to think that...its not about WB, its about every state.. cause har shaak par ullu betha hai.
citing kartik's comment,
"barbad-e-gulistaan karne ko,bas ek hi ullu kaafi hai,
har shaak pe ullu baitha ho,to anjaam-e-gulistaan kya hoga?"
But i oppose the proposed SEZs formation.
Everything in these SEZs would be different,the tax laws,the beurocaracy,the environment laws,the wages,anything,everything.
You see,they are special.
Seeing the red tapism,even today(you can make me cite an instance if you want),it would be quite appreciated if the copied concept(from China),be dumped and something indegenious,which corresponds to current state of the nation is adopted.
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