City Desk :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy has said the country’s estimated loss to the economy stands at over US$ 3.5 billion from the six days alone between October 28 and November 6 as BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami, and their allies observed a total of six days of blockades and strikes, reports BSS.
“The hardest hit are small traders, day labourers, and SMEs. The supply chain is in shambles, hurting both importers and exporters at an already critical economic period. Educational activities of children and youth are being drastically disrupted,” he wrote in a facebook post from his verified account.
Sharing an article’s web link published on Bangladeshi English language blog on politics “bdanalytica”, Joy wrote that at least 110 incidents of arson had been reported, targeting mainly buses and trucks.
BNP and their allies are paying their goons Tk 3,000 for each attack. Transport sector woes are exacerbating the costs of living crisis, as fares have skyrocketed due to the increased risks.
The Costs of BNP-Jamaat’s Successive Strikes and Blockades Hartal (strike) and Oborodh (blockade) are not new to Indian sub-continental politics. Bangladesh too, is no stranger to such restrictive political programmes.
In fact, such programmes played a key role in the nation’s long struggle for independence from Pakistan, in the decade long movement for restoration of democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and throughout the 1990s and 2000s for various political causes including the holding of free and fair elections under political governments.
Watching vandalism of public transportation, releasing the air from the tyres of rickshaw vans, clashes between protestors and law enforcement agents (LEAs), exploding of Molotov Cocktails (crude low-intensity hand-made explosives), and firing of tear-shells by LEAs were commonplace for those of us who grew up in Dhaka in the 90s and 2000s.
The Fall from Grace
Yet, even for my generation, let alone the younger ones, political programmes like Hartal and Oborodh have become bywords for destructive activities which bring people’s lives to a grinding halt.
This change of mentality happened principally during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. These years represented a particularly violent era of politics which was unprecedented even for Bangladesh. As stated before, although vandalism and/or clashes were not uncommon during strikes and blockades, a new low was reached in 2013 when Jamaat-E-Islami (“Jamaat”) launched a series of violent protests signified by widespread and indiscriminate firebombing of civilians, LEAs, and all forms of transportation (including railways and river ferries/launches).
A total of 15 police members were killed in 2013 by Jamaat-Shibir backed by BNP during their violence to stop and oppose the war crimes trials, which is the domestic tribunal set up by Bangladesh to try war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
