The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Hartals throwing life out of gear

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Saturday, Mar 10, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Hartals throwing life out of gear

LAW &ORDER Frequent hartals are causing hardships to the public as well as law enforcing agencies, writes Biju Govind

Kozhikode witnessed two hartals this week. One on Tuesday was called by the United Democratic Front (UDF) to protest against the attack on the activists of the Kerala Students Union and the Muslim Students Federation at the Government Law College on the previous day and the other on Thursday which was a State-wide protest of the Yuvajanavedi, youth wing of the CPI (ML), against the State Government taking loans from Asian Development Bank.

Law enforcing authorities had a tough time in controlling the supporters of the hartal who took out to the streets forcing shops to shut down and throwing stones at Government and private property. Two sub-inspectors V. Balachandran of Nallalam police station and K. Shiju of Kunnamangalam police station and several policemen, a Plus Two student and a passenger were injured in stone throwing incidents at several places.

The hartal on Tuesday, which was confined to Kozhikode taluk, saw many commuters coming from other parts of the State getting stranded at railway stations and bus stations. Only a few people were able to attend the out patient units at the Government and private hospitals. The worst affected were the students of the schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

"It was difficult conducting the Class X and Class XII examinations on hartal days since the question papers had to be collected from a nationalised bank half-an-hour before the examinations and the answer scripts had to be despatched to the CBSE regional office in Chennai on the same day. All the other school examinations had to be cancelled on hartal days," said R.S. Ramanujam, Principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya at East Hill and Superintendent of the Examination Centre.

Similarly, candidates appearing for the Calicut University examinations also had a hard time on Tuesday. The university had not postponed the examinations on that day since the hartal was restricted to Kozhikode taluk.

Senior police officers say that they are willing to give protection to shop keepers and the general public on hartal days. "The public should feel confident to come out since the police is providing protection. Hartal supporters will not go on the rampage if the public ignores the protest call," an officer said.

Hartals usually do not reflect the sentiments of the people. Shopkeepers down shutters and public remain indoors out of fear. Ever since the Supreme Court of India upheld the order of High Court of Kerala prohibiting bandh in the State, political parties and their feeder organisations have been calling hartal, which turned out to be bandh.

Hartal is a Gujarati word. `Hal' means everything or always; `Tal' means to close. Mahatma Gandhi observed hartal by boycotting commercial activity and engaging in prayer and fasting. In modern day, it has acquired an altogether different dimension where protestors forcibly close shops and parlayse normal activity.

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