Another Working Saturday

The day has ended with the Karnataka Chief Minister congratulating everyone for a peaceful and successful bandh this Monday. I think I badly deserved his congratulations especially since I had to spend Saturday as a working day in lieu of this dead eventless Monday. And how can I forget the exhilaration the day before when I went about purchasing things like bread, milk and any other things that needed to be stocked for this special closed day. Several other people achieved greater feats by successfully rescheduling their travel plans and wasting money. Those who did not had pleasant experiences with the taxi drivers. Naturally, the congratulations come as no surprise.

A spate of bandhs and riots has hit Bangalore in the past year or so.The reason this time is the Cauvery water verdict (Karnataka according to activists has been given an unfairly little allocation of water compared to Tamil Nadu). Other occasions to name a few have been the inclusion of Belgaum in Karnataka, Saddam Hussain's execution and a veteran actor's demise. The cultural, political and humanitarian awareness as well as what I call "state-bhakti" of the people responsible may be remarkable. But even as I am concerned this time about the water supply reaching my home in the future, I really abhor the idea of bandhs happening. One may ignore the pain of working on weekends to compensate for these free holidays. But the inconveniences, disturbances and rampages that result are plain insufferable. And who else but the common ordinary tax payer is forced to suffer the brunt as the activists (who I doubt have paid a single penny of tax in their life time) go berserk burning buses, stopping trains and threatening damages to any one or any organization defiling their call for bandh.

Perhaps one cannot keep people from protesting in a democracy. But whilst these people take undue advantage of their rights, there are many who are stifled. Why should the ordinary citizen bear any risk on his/her life for no tangible reason? Why should we be denied access to basic amenities being neither the victimized nor the victimizer? Why should we have to change plans upon short notices and also have to incur any losses resulting thereof? The administration needs to apologize rather than congratulate for such hateful examples of foolery.

My suggestion for people calling for such bandhs is to first go and shut down the cooking stoves in their houses. I feel hunger strikeswould evince better how grief-stricken they are (though I doubt how honest the demonstrators are about them). That would also deplete their capacities to cause disorders here and there. Should they have the desire of seeing things burning they could go and set their own houses ablaze. I think every square inch of a public bus is worth more than the entire life of many such hooligans. People engaging in such offences should not be merely detained and fed in the jails for they are no better than terrorists and should be penalized as severely.