Three days of bandh
Govt has done effective work in a short time: PM Dahal
General strikes (or bandhs in common parlance) are strictly third-world phenomena. Countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, characterized by high unemployment and weak rule of law, also witness most general strikes. The unemployed are frustrated and become ready, bandh-enforcing foot-soldiers for political parties; and weak rule of law allows them to employ disruptive tactics. But such strikes, as we are starting to find out, exact a heavy price on the society. According to Nepal Rastra Bank, in the five-year period between 2008 and 2013, a day of nationwide strike cost the national economy Rs 1.8 billion; the cumulative economic losses in the five years due to bandhs was a whopping Rs 117 billion. The worst thing about these bandhs is that they hit the poorest, those who have to work every day to make their ends meet, the hardest. Yet our political parties continue to employ this most disruptive and unjust means of protest. The thinking seems to be that common people will remain blissfully unaware of their political agenda unless they are forced to sit up and take note. But will taking notice make people more sympathetic?
Not necessarily. And if the growing public discontent with bandhs—manifested in organized citizen movements to defy the most recent ones—is any guide, the organizers will have an increasingly hard time enforcing them. The last few times have seen clashes between bandh enforcers and people who choose to fight back against this bullying. It is thus troubling that the UCPN (Maoist)-led opposition alliance has announced three consecutive days of national strikes starting Tuesday. Again, the chances of people meekly choosing to hole themselves up in their homes for three days on a trot are extremely low. If so, the opposition parties will have to use violence to enforce their strike, in the process delegitimizing even their genuine grievances. The 30-party alliance got a taste of the kind of backlash they can expect at an interaction they had organized on Saturday. All business and civil society leaders who participated, unsurprisingly, urged the opposition to desist from disruptive protests with one voice.We could not agree more. We would also like to urge the opposition parties to call off their suicidal bandh programs. By refusing to sit for dialogue with the ruling parties—even when the constitutional process has been suspended indefinitely on their demand—and instead adopting an unpopular and undemocratic means of protest, the opposition isn't winning any friends. To regain the lost public trust the opposition parties should either be ready for meaningful dialogue or agree to the democratic process of voting in the CA. At the end of the day, only the sovereign Constituent Assembly has the right to write the constitution of new Nepal. The opposition leaders are not so naïve; they understand the game all too well. It is precisely because they are so insecure about their puny size in the CA that they want to impose solutions from outside. Their latest pressure tactics have only fanned these suspicions.
