A Referendum On Political Hartals

News from Bangladesh, 29 November, 1997

Political Hartals have been causing a MATERIAL DAMAGE to our Nation: They have been creating a Pervert Culture, a culture of MIGHT IS RIGHT. This culture is enticing and encour aging members of our society, particularly those who are deficient in human qualities and therefore, morally delinquent, to acquire resources and seize power, by hook or by crook, and materialize their evil designs. This Pervert Culture is leading us to a national situation, which is both extremely dangerous, and totally undesirable and untenable: A Nation of Uncivil and Immoral People; A Nation of Lawlessness.

There is only one way open to us to eliminate this hydra-headed problem: To outlaw PHs. This we can do by amending the Constitution or annexing in it the provision: All kinds of PHs shall remain suspended and all connections of PPs with hartals organized by other civil associations shall remain prohibited till the transfer of Power takes place through Parliamentary Elections conducted by the Care-Taker Governments. This Law shall be considered valid if and only if the political governments are changed by the system of Care-Taker Government and shall remain in force and effect until the system of Care-Taker Government abolished.

The Question To Be Investigated

Hartal is a political means of civil disobedience: In all civilized nations, civil disobedience is a fundamental human right and an essential ingredient of human freedom. We must protect and preserve this fundamental human right in our society at any cost. But the kinds of activities that are being carried out in the name of Political Hartals (PHs) in the country for many years, can hardly be characterized as human rights. On the contrary, these activities are severely violating the fundamental right of the vast majority of our people and causing sufferings to many, often unspeakable. Given the situation described above, I shall conduct my enquiry based on the following assumption: It is the awareness and unanimous view of the vast majority of our people that, in order to protect and preserve our fundamental human right- the right to civil disobedience, these PHs must outlawed. If this assumption is wrong, then there is little point in doing this enquiry. The question, therefore, we must investigate is: How can we outlaw the PHs without incurring any risk of jeopardising our fundamental right- our Right to Civil Disobedience? In investigating the above question in this essay, I will proceed with three broad questions concerning three broad issues related to PHs. The first question concerns the true nature of our protests against PHs and their strength and seriousness. The second section analyses the fundamental reasons why the Nation should be truly concerned about PHs. The final section suggests a formulae to end PHs from our national life.

Is There Any Serious Opposition To Political Hartals?

True. There have been substantial academic protests against political hartals in the country: news papers have written editorials; concerned citizens have written features and professionals have written academic papers. Apparently, a positive correlation exists between academic protests and PHs: as political parties (PPs) step up their hartal programmes, intellectuals find renewed interests in sharpening their brains against hartals. But these academic protests have produced little impacts on the PPs executing hartal programmes. Why? Perhaps because the PPs perceive no real threat from these academic protests; if they did, they surely would not go on with their hartal programmes. Thus, if we hope to solve this problem, me must understand the true nature and be able to fathom the seriousness of our protests against PHs. This is indeed a serious job and conceivably impossible to measure empirically. Even the best opinion polls may not help us very much. The only resort we have, which I will attempt here, is a conceptual analysis. In doing this conceptual analysis, I will guide myself by my conception and belief about the fundamental of human nature: We humans are self-lovers and propelled to actions by our self-interests.

The PPs are carrying out hartals to achieve their political interests- occupy the state power. How individual citizens react to these political actions, is determined by three conditions: (i) individuals' private interests affected by hartals, (ii) individuals' social and political consciousness about hartals and (iii) individuals' ability or power to protest. To make this analysis meaningful, we need to classify our population into different social strata. I will first classify our people as rural and urban. The 80% of our people who live in the rural areas have little to be upset by PHs because their lives are not materially affected by these political activities. Additionally, the activities of our PPs must have made them feel that there is little social and political reasons to become worried about and protest against these PHs. Thus, the vast majority of our people are indifferent and uninterested in the hartal issue. We are now left with 20% of our people who live in the urban areas. Hartals affect the lives of different classes of urban dowelling people in different ways. First, come the low income self-employed people; these people are truly hard hit by PHs. This group include rickshaw pullers, taxi drivers, petty traders and like other people. But they can hardly complain, let alone protest, because they do not have the power or means to do so. There are unions which pretend to protect the interests of these people and we usually assume that they can protest through their unions. But it is not necessarily true that the union leaders represent the interests of ordinary members. How do we know that these leaders are not influenced by the PPs? How do we know that they are not purchaseable?

The other group of people who are directly affected by PHs include private business and factory/ industry owners. While the big business people are often able to influence PPs decisions with respect to hartals, the small business people have little power to protect their interests. Thus, people who are seriously affected by the hartals do not have the power or means to protest. Among the rest of the urban people, the members of the armed and the police forces must be exempted from the analysis. The remaining urban people can be identified into three classes which have substantial power to influence PPs hartal activities. These groups are: (i) college and university students , (ii) teachers of educational institutions and (iii) all government and private sector employees. Our college and university students used to be the most organized social force in the country; they had provided leadership in all our past major political movements. Although our general students do understand the repressive nature of PHs and are seriously affected by them, they are helpless to protest as student organizations are controlled by the PPs.

Do our teachers- of all educational institutions- disapprove PHs? Let me speak about myself. I used to teach at the Bangladesh Agricultural University, (I resigned in 1996 and immigrated to Canada). I believe I actually welcomed hartals. During the hartal period, I used to do my own research: write articles for journals, preparing research proposal etc. I do not see any material reason why teachers should protest against PHs; they receive their salaries as usual and therefore can either enjoy their unscheduled holidays at home or do something for earning extra-income. We must understand that consciousness and responsibility are relative matters. There is no reason why the feelings of the government and non-government employees about PHs should be any different from those of the teachers. Thus, the people who have the power to protest against PHs are either incapacitated by PPs (students) or have actually vested interests in them. Therefore PPs are in fact receiving active or tacit support from the people who have power to compel the PPs to give up their hartal activities. By this analysis, I am led to conclude that there is not enough strength and seriousness in our protests against PHs that will force our PPs to abandon their hartal activities. The academic protests are indeed good reading materials for our leisure time, but they hardly matter to the PPs. Perhaps the reaction of PPs to academic protests may be captured in the words of General Ershard, "The vast majority of people of Bangladesh do not read newspapers." General Ershard made this comment, while he was occupying the presidency of the country, to a foreign journalist who drew his attention to a report published in a Western medium: The report described the General as "the richest president of the world in the poorest country".

Why Should We Bother About Political Hartals?

If people do not care about PHs, why should we at all bother about them? I can think of three points which, I believe, are truly important regarding this issue: (i) national frustration (ii) misconception about political rights and (iii) material damage caused by PHs.

National Frustration: The fundamental reason why people are indifferent about PHs is a sense of frustration: From the social and political perspective, the protests are useless and meaningless and from individual perspective, they are damaging to private interest. An analysis of the history of our half-century old political independence, which we have achieved twice, would reveal the reasons of this national frustration. I however do not want to do that; instead I would quote the views of two ordinary men, one Bangladeshi and one Pakistani, which The Globe and Mail reported before the General Elections in Bangladesh in 1996 and in Pakistan in 1997. The last Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh took place after very long and very painful political protests. It is naturally expected that people should have happily participated in those elections. But the facts are on the contrary. Mr. Emarat Hossain, a farmer and trader of Sutrapur village gave his reactions to a Globe and Mail (13th June, 1996) correspondent as follows: "What government? Who will come to power is all the same to us. They do nothing for us. Who takes power is interested in their development, not ours." Pakistan's last general elections were held on the 10th of February. The voters' participation was very poor and it is thought that a significant section of people who had cast their votes were persuaded by the candidates under different kinds of pressure: bribes, threats of inflicting harms, threats of withdrawing favours. Two village dwellers reacted about the election in the following ways: "For eight years, I have voted for these people and look around you. Nothing. Nothing." "The big fish eats everything."

What is the point of reacting against PHs? When AL was in opposition, it executed hartals and BNP resented them; now BNP is in opposition and executing hartals and AL is resenting them. If, because of the change in the government, BNP again returns to power and AL is reduced to opposition, their activities will change accordingly. Thus, the fundamental reason for the general indifference about PHs is the national frustration. In an individual's life, frustration leads to personal miseries and disasters which may culminate, at the extreme limit, in the death of the person. The national frustration may not cause the disintegration of nation, but it surely does point to the continuation of political problems and its bleak future.

Should we not deeply ponder and carefully analyze this dreadful national situation? Misconceived Political Rights: In our private and social dealings, we are guided by our values and beliefs which concern our conceptions of life in the society: individual, family, social and political. The conception that is guiding our values and beliefs about PHs is our idea of political rights: PHs is the right of the PPs and they exercising their rights. This is a very wrong conception of political rights. In my previous article titled: WHAT KINGDOMS ARE BUT GREAT GANGS OF CRIMINALS..., which The Daily Star and News From Bangladesh had published respectively on the 14th of October and 15th November, I have argued that a PPs turns into a gang if it exhibits the attributes which a gang possess. PHs are being carried out not in the interest of general welfare, but fundamentally guided by political motives and purposes. If we are prepared to accept these mean selfish activities of our PPs as their political rights, why should we not be prepared to accept the activities of the gangs as their political rights too? This misconception has been causing all sorts of political problems in our country and must be put to an end. I believe our concerned expert citizens- social scientists, lawyers and politicians in particular- would come forward to clarify the conceptions of political rights- the conceptions so noble, so important and so vital for our existence as a nation or state- and free them from the evil domain of our politicians.

This misconception is preventing our ordinary citizens from reacting appropriately against PHs; but I am truly amazed by its impact on the academic writings. I wish to divide the articles, editorials and comments, which I have read in the dailies in the Internet, into four categories. In the first category, I shall to include academic writings which are not protests in the true senses, they are actually meant to elicit compassion of our political leaders. Second, there are writings which have made many suggestions to reduce the confrontation and by that reduce the incidence of PHs. Theses writings are not protests at all. Third, there are academic writings which have very sharply reacted against PHs and in turn often subjected to counter-reactions of similar ferocity as they have political biases. Finally, I shall include articles which belong to my own profession. I am a humble student of Economics and therefore truly attracted by and interested in writings which have analyzed the problem using economic tools. I have found myself both unconvinced and disturbed by the idea of analyzing PHs in our country using the theories of Economics. The problem we are dealing with relate to human freedom and human rights issue. If PHs were approved by our people, then instead of criticising them, we would have supported them. The fact is that PHs are being carried out against the wills of the people. Thus, the problem is truly political and must be analyzed using theories of Political Science. I can not convince myself that economic theories are the Right Tools to analyze the effects of PHs. The science of economics has little to say about human freedom and human rights; more properly it leaves these issues to the discipline where they belong- Political Science. To substantiate my point, I am making a long quotation from Adam Smith, the father of modern Economics:

As every individual . . . endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of

domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every

individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He

generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interests, nor knows how much he is

promoting it . . . he intends only his own gain, and he in this, as in many other cases, led by an

invisible hand to promote to an end which was no part of his intention.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but

from their regard to their own interest. We address to ourselves not to their humanity, but to their

self-love, and we talk to them not of our necessity, but of their advantages.

Material Damage Caused By Phs: What are the real costs and effects of PHs? Although the academic writings on PHs are substantial, they hardly discuss this issue. Are they so obvious? I do not think so. Therefore, if we really wish and hope to solve this national problem, we must be absolutely clear about the true nature and the real extent of the costs and effects that PHs impose on us. The costs of PHs can be grouped into three categories; these can be phrased as costs to (i) individuals, (ii) the Economy, and (ii) the National. The costs to individuals are very easy to identify; these include personal miseries that individuals must suffer for obeying PHs against their wills. The foregoing discussion has made it abundantly clear that only a small section of our population suffer these costs. These people belong to the lowest stratum of our urban society, who have little power to protest. Thus, they are destined to suffer and the people who have power to protest, are consciously prepared to sacrifice them at the altar of their mean selfishness. The costs to the Economy, the only costs of PHs investigated rather seriously, are also easy to understand and easy to measure statistically. Because of hartals, factories and industries remain closed which means loss of potential production. The losses of production in individual production units sum to the total loss to the Economy. Although PHs brake activities in the service sector, this loss hardly gets our attention for seriously consideration. I wish to underline here particularly the effects on the educational sector. Our primary concern and interests are in production loss in the industrial units which earn export revenue. But losses in this sector are much more important for the sustainable development of our Nation than these short-term production losses. This cost to Economy, imposed by PHs, becomes very important to the PPs in power; once it is out of power, this economic cost to the nation hardly matter to it. It begins its hartal programmes as soon as it reckons that they would serve its political interests. I really can not say how much importance an individual accords on this cost in guiding his/ her private businesses, because I do not see any abiding reason to do so. Thus, if our purpose of investigation is to end this national problem, I then conclude that we have selected a wrong variable. The question is not whether this cost item is important; the fact is that it is important neither to victims nor to the perpetrators. The costs to the Nation are the costs of PHs that we should be truly concerned about. Let me first define the Nation which I will do in the words of John Stuart Mill, the eminent economist and philosopher of the 19th century:

A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality (Nation), if they are united among

themselves by common sympathies, which do not exist between them and any others- which make

them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire under the same

government, and desire that it should be government by themselves, or a portion of themselves,

exclusively.

The history of mankind teaches us that all kinds of relationships in the Nation are determined by power. When the Nation fails to protect its less powerful members from the unjust claims of its more powerful members, the rule that determines the social consciousness and helps develop social forces is: Might is Right. The implications and effects of this socio-political situation to a Nation are both alarming and dangerous. This I wish to describe by the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau from his SOCIAL CONTRACT.

The strongest man is never strong enough to be master all the time, unless he transform force into

right and obedience into duty... Let us grant for the moment that this so-called "the right of the

strongest" exists. I suggest it can only produce a tissue of bewildering nonsense; for once might is

made right, cause and effect are reversed, and every force which overcomes another force inherits

the right which belonged to the vanquished. As soon as man can disobey with impunity, his

disobedience becomes legitimate; and as the strongest is always right, the only problem is how to

become the strongest.

What our PPs are doing in the name of hartals, has created a pervert culture in our Nation: MIGHT IS RIGHT. PHs are not right either politically or morally, simply because people do not approve and support them. But PPs, which are the most powerful associations in any Nation, have made them legitimate. And by doing this, they have accorded legitimacy to all unjust activities in the Nation. To perpetuate these unjust activities, all we need to become stronger to withstand any threat from the government or any other body or persons.

Today, few persons, however physical strength or financial resources command, can be powerful enough to execute unjust activities/ or designs at a large scale and for a long time. They must associate with somekind of associations or institutions to achieve their goals. My fellow citizens, I urge you to carefully look around and try to understand what is happening in our Nation: Students, teachers, employees, officers, and business people; any section of our population who can form groups/ associations, have done so and are demanding the resources of the Nation. If their demands were just, we would have prospered and lived a peaceful life; the problem is they are not.

This is the MATERIAL DAMAGE that PHs have caused to the Nation: They have created a Pervert Culture, a culture of MIGHT IS RIGHT. This culture is enticing and encouraging members of our society, particularly those who are deficient in human qualities and therefore, morally delinquent, to acquire resources and seize power, by hook or by crook, and materialize their evil designs. This Pervert Culture is leading us to a national situation, which is both extremely dangerous, and totally undesirable and untenable: A Nation of Uncivil and Immoral People; A Nation of Lawlessness.

We must understand the implications of this Material Damage to the Nation for our own private welfare, even if we do not care about national welfare. We are truly lucky that one member of our Nation has deeply understood the implications of this damage of PHs: He is our Honourable President, Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed. He is telling us the danger of PHs in his own way whenever he gets a chance; but we are not listening to him.

How Can We Overcome This National Problem?

To investigate this question, we must be guided by two principles that determine our fates in the Nation: (i) our fundamental right to civil disobedience shall not be jeopardized at any cost; (ii) for both our private and national welfare, PHs must be outlawed. PHs must be outlawed because they have created a pervert culture in the society which are encouraging to create lawlessness. The second reason for which PHs must be outlawed is to compel the opposition political parties to search out and master new and more effective methods to unpopularize the government. The government must not be given any chance to rest for a second with its anti-people activities.

To understand the political importance and implication of Civil Disobedience, I am here quoting two eminent persons. OSCAR WILDE, a 19th century British dramatist and novelist, once said:

Whenever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.

Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through

disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience, through rebellion.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by

their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of

Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just

Powers from the Consent of the Governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes

destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new

Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as

to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I can think of only one way by which we can achieve both of our goals set out above: protect our fundamental right to civil disobedience and at the same time outlaw PHs. I will attempt to spell out my idea below.

We have instituted the system of Care-Taker Government to conduct Parliamentary elections for the transfer of Power to the newly elected government. Three months before the expiry of its tenure, the current elected government resigns and a Care-Taker Government consisting of persons who are not directly or indirectly related to any political party, is formed by the President. When, after the general elections, the new elected government is sworn in, the Care-Taker Government is released automatically. The fundamental reason for introducing this system, that we all know, is: our PPs could not trust each other for holding fair elections. If they would, we would not need this system.

The problem we have with the PHs is quite similar. The right to call hartals is a fundamental human right; if our PPs would have exercised this right properly, wisely and morally, we had nothing to complain. Instead we would feel that our fundamental right is well protected and well utilized. But the fact on the contrary. Because they are abusing this right, a very grave national situation has been be created. This clearly indicates that the source and the cause of both the problems- fair elections and PHs- are the same: our political parties. The remedies accordingly must be related. Here is my proposal:

All kinds of PHs shall remain suspended and all connections of PPs with hartals organized by

other civil associations shall remain prohibited till the transfer of Power takes place through

Parliamentary Elections conducted by the Care-Taker Governments. This Law shall be

considered valid if and only if the political governments are changed by the system of Care-Taker

Government and shall remain in force and effect until the system of Care-Taker Government

abolished.

I now end my essay quoting the great American President, Abraham Lincoln, from a speech that he delivered on January 27, 1838:

Let reverence for the laws be breathed every American mother, to the lisping babe that prattles on

her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primmer,

spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls,

and enforced in the halls of justice. And, in short, let it become Political Religion of the nation.

Please write your comments or suggestions here.

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