Squandering political capital!

Last month's long march was a step to the right direction, and a success of huge proportion. It created mass interest, galvanized huge crowd, and remained mostly peaceful. It ended with a declaration that AL would the job they were voted for: they will go to parliament. To add to all this, a propaganda victory was dished out by the ruling party through frantic blanket arrests. Then AL slipped. They called a hartal.

This is a good way of squandering hard earned political capital. Fear drives a hartal to success, but the party loses points to commoners' grudge. The lower income people who suffered most in the blanket arrests will not count this hartal as a settlement of score. They will count it with prison days as one more day of lost income. An added disadvantage for AL is that every time they pronounce the word hartal, people remember their unconditional pledge not to call it from opposition. Still a bigger loser in hartal is democracy itself, because it takes away others' rights.

Hasina likes to say she struggles for democracy for the people. Well, the best way to safeguard democracy is to practise it. Why is it so hard to keep in mind?