Buddha dare not speak here: 75 strikes in Kerala already this year and losing count

Rodiya, from Kottayam, got the news that her five-year-old son had died. Roads being blocked, she rushed to the railway station where citing the “neoliberal” policies of the Centre, a group of comrades squatted on the tracks. Her tears were of little help. Kottayam is barely three hours away from Thiruvananthapuram but Rodiya reached her home only late evening and that, too, under police protection.

From the trauma of a mother who’s lost her child and can’t get home to countless others, unseen and unheard, who are forced to put everything on hold, Kerala is now the perpetual victim of the bandh-success story: this year alone, 75 hartals have paralysed districts and towns, six the entire state. From Saddam’s execution to the surge in oil prices, from even chikungunya to the death of a local leader — the cause hardly matters when a hartal itself is the rallying cause.

If a member of village panchayat is attacked by a rival party, the next day, that panchayat region shuts down. As highways pass through panchayats and municipalities, a hartal in a particular panchayat affects vehicular movement through that area. Result: long-distance vehicles stop at the border of the district and wait until the end of the agitation. Academic schedules are derailed, the Kerala Chamber of Commerce estimates a Rs 450-crore loss for each strike day, hospitals are forced to reschedule surgeries.

Says Philip Augustine, managing director of Lakeshore Hospital, Kochi: “Surgeries and consultations would have been booked months before. If patients cannot reach the hospital, they miss treatment at the correct time. Cancer patients are the worst hit. Even chemotherapies have had to be postponed due to hartals. On a hartal day, we have send ambulances to bring doctors hoping that ambulances will be spared by the agitators. The entire logistics of the hospital goes haywire.”

Clearly, the fundamental right to strike over-rides all these. Consider:

• The August 20 hartal was the fifth statewide hartal in Kerala this year. The same day, the Manalur Assembly constituency in Thrissur observed another hartal to protest against the murder of a BJP activist.

So endemic is the hartal virus in the state that ideology is no immunity.

• BJP was first to organise a statewide hartal this year. The party is yet to get a single Assembly seat but its hartal on May 2 grounded the entire state. Its cause: protest against price rise.

• Both comrades and the Parivar — who otherwise kill each other in Kannur and then call hartals to mark that — joined hands to shut down the state on June 5 against the hike in fuel prices.

• Hindu groups again hit the state with another hartal on July 3, over the Amarnath land issue.

• On July 21, the CPM-led Left slapped another hartal across the state in protest against the death of a school teacher in political violence, allegedly involving the Muslim League.

• The coastal town of Kodungalloor — the new Sangh-CPM battleground — saw hartals for three consecutive days. On July 3, the city was shut as part of a statewide hartal. The murder of a DYFI activist that day forced the CPM-DYFI combine to call for a hartal on July 4. The following day, local traders observed another hartal, in protest against attack on shops.

• Pathanapuram constituency in Kollam observed a shutdown on July 2 after police arrested a CPI leader who had been involved in a crime.

• On July 24, Thalassery town, along Kerala-Mumbai highway, shut down in protest against the murder of a CPM worker by NDF.

• Mulavukadu panchayat in Ernakulam district joined the hartal chronicle on July 26 against alleged police highhandedness towards a panchayat member.

• Wayanad district, the major link between Kerala and Karnataka, remained shut on August 5, after the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) wanted a bailout package for crisis-ridden farmers in the district.

• UDF sponsored a district hartal in Idukki, which houses several tourist spots, on June 30, to register the protest against CPM attack on Congressmen.

• The BJP in Palakkad organized a district hartal on February 6, after its workers were arrested as part of anti-goonda drive of police.

Recently, the Kerala High Court came down heavily on the state government considering a bunch of petitions asking the court to initiate contempt of court against the government which failed to ensure normal life on a hartal day.

While hearing the petition, the court said, “Even a small-scale trader who has only an investment of Rs 5,000 cannot do business on a hartal day. The government has the responsibility to ensure normal life. People should get the confidence to venture out on a hartal day.”

But so inured is the state that the general reaction is one of acceptance rather than anger. Anwar Jahan Zuberi, Vice Chancellor of Calicut University, asked about how hartals had affected the schedule, said she would not react on this sensitive political issue. Said Kannur University VC P Chandramohan: “We are forced to postpone many exams as students would not be able to reach the exam centres for want of transport facility.”

Asked how the tourism industry — linked to Brand Kerala — is being crippled by hartals, state Tourism Secretary V Venu said he had no comments on the issue.

Not surprising, since if he had a comment, there could very well be a strike against it the next day.