I need a break.....
I need a break from some things and one of them is Bandhs. Bandhs are the in-thing in Patna as its nearly election time and each political party calls for a Bandh someday or the other. The funny thing is that two or more parties may want to organize a bandh on the same issue but they call for a bandh on different days in order to protect their individual identities. As a result on Monday we had the BJP-JD (U) combines bandh against the rising prices and on Wednesday, the bandh is organised by CPI(ML) on another raging issue: naxalism. I do not know what fun these parties get in organizing these bandhs. Don't they realize that such bandhs disrupt public life, lead to hugh economic losses (refer to TOI dated 06.07.10) and cause a lot of nuisance? When I was in school, I looked forward to these bandhs as it gave us a day off in the middle of the hectic academic year. By the time I reached college, bandhs of all types became the norm of the day and invariably we would have quite a number of holidays due to bandhs and then landed up with extra classes to complete the syllabus. Today the situation is slightly better but we are mentally preparing ourselves for lots of bandhs till the elections get over!
Apart from these huge Bharat bandhs, Bihar bandhs and Patna bandhs, there are, at times, local bandhs to protest against irregular electricity or water supply or blocked drains in an area. Sometimes, these bandhs turn out to be more violent than the other bandhs. The local population in the area of protest may end up destroying the wind shields of buses, cars and autos moving through that area, puncture the tyres of vehicles (irrespective of the make of the vehicle) and even lash out at the people on foot. Something similar happened in the capital (ND) last night. Do such acts bring electricity or water to the concerned area or change their situation in any manner? Sadly, the answer is in the negative. No government officials visit the disturbed locality and the residents of the said locality lose the sympathy of the general public due to the attitude of the few who take on themselves the burden of drawing government and public attention!
We seriously need to think of ways of protest so as to achieve the desired end without disrupting the life of the general public and leading to loss of public property!
Comments
In the end, people take pride in the fact that they just had a bandh, so in a way they oppose the government. But who suffers at last?