The bandhs

Bandh is a Hindi word that originally means “closed,” and in contemporary cultures, it is used to describe a form of protest here in India.

During a Bandh, a political party or a community declares a general strike. Often Bandh means that the community or political party declaring a Bandh expect the general public to stay in their homes and strike work… shopkeepers are expected to keep their shops closed and the public transport operators of buses and cabs are supposed to stay off the road and not carry any passengers. (Wikipedia)

Bandhs have occurred for various reasons throughout the past month. Some were strikes due to Maoist threats, some were called by students who decided to protest against groups who were beating them up, and others were strikes called because of issues such as price hikes. There have been several regional bandhs that have occurred for these reasons since we got to Jharkhand, many times hindering our trips out to the field because they render the roads unsafe; so we’ve dealt with them accordingly – by rescheduling our field visits.

The first few bandhs that we encountered were pretty tolerable, as we’ve gotten a great deal of office work out of the way, but they’ve become increasingly rhythmic and rather annoying now. The regional bandhs that happened previously affected mostly our district (East Jamshedpur) or our state (Jharkhand), or a neighboring state (like Bihar). But today, there was a nationwide bandh. The Bharat bandh practically switched off India for the whole day (12 hours on Monday, 5 July), shutting down roads, highways, and transport services, consequently leaving shopkeepers and other businesses bereft of any sort of productivity. The Bharat bandh was called to protest against the hike in fuel prices (which, legitimately enough, are very high at headline inflation rates of 10.16%, reports Reuters), but one has to wonder if such a day’s loss in economic productivity is really worth it.

Is it truly worth shutting down offices and schools for the day? Is it worth canceling the much-needed mobile medical clinics scheduled to visit sick patients in rural villages? Is it worth grounding massive numbers of airline flights? And is it really worth the squatter vandalism and morbid violence that erupts in cities all across India?