Hartal: A self-destructive weapon

A general strike, popularly known as hartal in our country, always affects the life of common people as it hampers the economic activities of our country to a great extent. None supports it and I think we should do away with this mode of protest which harms our economy and the people.

The government should sit with their opposition and discuss how they can banish it from our society. The ruling party has to bear its part of the responsibility to settle this issue.

It is no secret that the present ruling party, when they had been in the opposition, had called numerous strikes to get back to power. In our country we see when a political party is in the opposition, they call hartal. But the same party denounces it, when they go to power. We have to discard this hypocrisy and have to call a spade a spade always.

The world has moved forward but our politics is still lagging far behind. The ruling party must provide adequate space for their opponents so that they can express their protests in a peaceful way. Filing numerous cases against political activists of other parties and harassing them will only create more unrest in our country, which is not desired by anyone.

Masud Rana

Dhanmondi, Dhaka