HARTHAL AND OTHER FORMS OF PROTESTS
Harthal is a form of protest. It is self sacrificing protest. In order to earn something that democratically eligible for people collectively do this protest. The impact of this protests in all forms are born by the people themselves. The concerned authorities are generally not the losers.
Indian farmers strike of 2020-2021 was the largest protest of the world with a participation of 250 million people. This was followed by the Earth Day 1970 with 20 million and Iraq war protest of 2003 with 30 million globally were the other major protests in the world.
According to available information for the period of 2009-2014 there were an average of 200 Harthals/protests every day in our country which makes a total of 4,20,000 protests during this period of five years.
The government do not have any detailed and perfect account of the loss due to these protests. However as per available information due to the farmers strike in 2020-2021 period Punjab, Haryana and Delhi together had a daily loss of Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500 crores due to road blocks and supply chain disruptions. This farmer's strike is informed to have caused over Rs70,000 crores in a single quarter. A 2023 report indicates that 2020-2021 violence and unrest costed the country a total sum of $646 billion (about Rs 50 lakhs crores) This subsequently caused problems for the annual budget preparation.
The people should not forget that any economic losses caused by the protests to be born by the people themselves. Generally the ruling government do not concede to the demands made by the opposition parties in the form of destructive protests.
Let us, therefore, find an end to all forms of protests especially destructive protests. Instead we may find a democratic mode of approach through judiciary, preferably a specially created one for this very purpose.
K V George
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