In this country there are only two occasions when we, the normal citizens, are of any significant relevance to our political parties; elections and 'bandhs'. During elections they pull out all the stops to impress us whilst during bandhs the same people will have no qualms about victimizing us in order to make the government pliable to their demands.
Their raucous displays of patriotism so conspicuous during strikes are surprisingly absent during times of national need like rescue and relief efforts. This trend of resorting to strikes at the slightest whiff of trouble is not entirely unexpected seeing that a fair few of our political parties germinated from trade union movements. Once the preserve of disgruntled industrial workers, strikes have now been appropriated by them to serve the dual purpose of political coercion and a show of strength and bullying prowess.
The disastrous consequences of all these strikes have already been repeated ad infinitum by all and sundry. It's especially amusing to hear our governments harp on about attracting FDI, building infrastructure, boosting industrial and commercial activity for economic progress when all of them are aware of the need to tackle the one common denominator hampering
all of the above; the labor-politics nexus.
It's staring at them in the face but the politics of musical chairs ensures that no party will rock that particular boat. After all they may well have to resort to those measures tomorrow. Labor and politics are such convenient bedfellows here that there has always existed an endless conveyor belt of trade union hopefuls who aspire to be ministers someday and be given the chance to participate in national (read personal) 'development'.
Anyway, the fact that they exist to scratch each other's backs is well known but it's hard to justify people like you and I tolerating these bandhs. The most ironical thing in all of this is that they oppress us in our name, seek our support, and our most natural action is to willingly oblige. My accusation will no doubt have people sharpening their knives and voicing their disapproval but the bitter truth is that we are unwittingly complicit in the so called 'successes' of these strikes.
We are far too easily agreeable to bandhs (I'm just as guilty) because for a lot of us, it's a justifiably convenient excuse for some downtime. You would do really well to find someone who hasn't been thankful for this enforced work life balance that supplements our one day weekends. It's not like a great deal needs to be done to sway us either. All it really takes is some well-placed rumor mongering and we are up and away planning our itinerary for our 'free' time.
Bhupi Sherchan's wrote a poem – 'Yo hallai halla ko shahar ho'. All too often we are content to stick with our preconceived ideas of the risks which then makes it totally redundant for all those goons to even show up to enforce the strike. At times I've been witness to incredibly farcical scenes played out in offices around the capital when strikes are called off. Cue groans and disappointment when we are forced to do that dreadful thing – work another day for a living.
Yes, the security situation is not ideal during most of the strikes with all manner of thugs out to make a point, but we also have to be held culpable for emboldening them in the first place. People who are running a business, self-employed, or even those required to be at work always manage to find a way. A lot of people are probably thinking that their work or jobs are not worth the risk of defiance but we are talking about the principle of effort rather than the actual act of defiance.
A case can be argued for those who use public transport but the pooling of resources like motorbikes and cars and the use of the vast networks of informal roads in the capital has been used by many people I know with a great deal of success. If we had pressing matters at hand then no amount of risk would stop us from moving about. It's true that during a bandh one can really witness the true significance of the 'will' to finding a 'way'.
There are a lot of people who do not feel the same way and think of themselves as just victims who have nothing to do with encouraging this practice. My friend completely disagrees with me and says safety comes first and it's the government's responsibility to provide us better security. Yes, the government has a lot of responsibilities but when have they actually given us anything we wanted? We can keep flogging a dead horse by blaming the unions and political parties but they do what they have to do to survive. It's about time we did too.
gunjan.u@gmail.com
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