One of the greatest thinkers of the current time, who happens to be a Bengali, Amartya Sen said 'Silence is a powerful enemy of social justice (The Argumentative Indian, p-39)'. From the dawn of their emergence as a nation until today, Bengalis hate to remain silent against any kind of perceived injustice. They fight against it. In case they fail to do so, they at least castigate it in groups. History testifies that struggle for justice probably is the closest kin of this nation - struggle for independence and right, with few exceptions of course. In the trade-off between sacrifice of blood and endurance of injustice, the nation always prefers the former.
However, the tools used in the struggle have changed overtime. A hundred years ago, the struggle against any perceived injustice did not include any hartal or blockade. But in the current days and time, they are over-utilised. Were our forefathers not creative enough to use these techniques as a strategy in their struggle? Or were they intelligent enough to realise that in the economic structure and environment prevalent in their time, these techniques would not have any impact?
Until the exit of the British colonial rulers, the economy of Bangladesh as well as the Indian subcontinent was predominantly agricultural. The agricultural surplus during the pre-British era was utilised in unproductive activities by the ruling class for their entertainment and during the British era, was siphoned off out of the country by the colonial rulers. Agricultural activities were carried out at household level. The surplus was appropriated from the farmers by the rulers by using fiscal apparatus rather than the market mechanism. In an agrarian economy where market plays very little role, there is nothing much to stop by hartal or blockade. Probably, that explains why these techniques were not used by our forefathers in their struggle against the British Raj.
With time, the economic structure of Bangladesh has significantly changed. It was predominantly an agricultural country with some non-agricultural (industry and service) activities at the time of independence. But now, agriculture accounts for less than 20 per cent of total GDP (gross domestic product) while the rest is accounted for by the non-agricultural activities. Non-agricultural goods and services are produced mainly for markets, seldom for own consumption. Even within the agricultural sector, the penetration of commercial purposes has significantly increased in the recent years. Besides, both agricultural and non-agricultural activities now rely on inputs which need to be procured from the markets at home and abroad, and delivered at the production site.
Market requires transportation, not only to carry the produce to the market but also for the physical movement of buyers and sellers. Any success to disrupt and/or halt the transportation system disrupts the market, thus results in huge economic impact. This is the reason why hartal or blockade - any kind of disruption or halt in the transportation system no matter what one calls it - is bound to have a huge impact on the economy.
There has not been any scientific research to quantify the economic impact of hartal or blockade although some guesstimates are widely cited both in print and electronic media. It is difficult to know to what extent these guesstimates proximate the true economic cost. While the quantitative aspects of hartal and/or blockade are over-emphasised in the media, the other aspects do not find any space in them.
Hartals and blockades result in a multi-dimensional economic cost. It has a current as well as a future cost. When a bus cannot run on the road, the earnings foregone is the current cost. If the bus is burnt into ashes, the services that the bus could potentially provide in the rest of its life time and the earnings that its owner could potentially earn are the future costs. In addition to the destruction of income-earning capital goods, there is another important way for the hartals and blockade to result in future economic costs.
An investor invests on the basis of expected profitability. While taking a decision whether to invest or not, one not only evaluates the situation of today but also how things are likely to turn out tomorrow. Hartals and blockades are an outcome of conflicting politics. Conflicting politics does not forebode stable and robust economic environment of a country, rather it is a pointer to a very uncertain future.
Uncertainty is a powerful enemy of investment. This is why hartal and blockade unnerve the potential local and foreign investors who stay away from investing until their confidence about the future is restored. Therefore, in guesstimating the economic cost of a hartal and blockade, one should not only look at how many buses and trucks stayed away from the road, how many of them were burnt, how much production of output was forgone, but also how much investment was lost and how many machines could not be installed.
In addition to the quantitative aspect of economic cost of hartal, there exists a distributional aspect as well. The most significant victim of the hartal and blockade is the service sector. Within the service, transport and petty trade activities suffer the most. Those who are involved in these activities are either poor or people who marginally escaped from the poverty with no economic resilience to check their collapse into the poverty trap as a result of any kind of sudden fall in income. When a bus remains away from the road continuously for a week or so, its owner may be able to bear the economic hardship of lost income. But the transport workers employed by him, if not paid for a week, are more likely to be trapped into debt. Similarly, a small farmer who cannot sell his perishable produce at a fair price for a week, is very likely to collapse into the poverty trap. Whatever the aggregate number cited in the media now-a-days - Tk 15 or 20 billion - this does not reflect the distributional aspects of the economic cost of hartals and blockade.
In addition to the temporal and distributional impact, hartals and blockade also involve a seasonal aspect. Seasonality in agricultural production is a common phenomenon. Farmers in this country produce both cereal and non-cereal crops. The lion's share of cereal produced by the farmers is consumed by themselves. Besides, main cereals are not perishable meaning their sale can be deferred depending on the economic ability of the producer. However, it is not possible in case of perishable non-cereals.
Farmers in Bangladesh produce a wide range of non-cereal, for example, vegetables during winter. They are produced mainly as a cash crop; not for own consumption rather for market. In fact, for many of farmers, production of cash crop is the only way to accumulate cash-capital which they use to finance the production of cereal, i.e., rice production. If they cannot sell their non-cereal produce at the expected price, their rice production may also be affected. This is why the economic impact of the ongoing blockade in the month of Poush on farmer can be particularly high.
Politicians from both isles, those who are calling these blockades and those who are allegedly responsible for it, should take different aspects of the economic cost of hartal and blockades in their cognizance to better serve the people. After all, all politicians and political parties claim that the sole purpose of their politics is to serve the people of the country and help their economic development and prosperity.
Dr. Abul Basher is Researcher at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), former economist, World Bank, and former faculty, Willamette University, USA.
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