So we are celebrating the second hartal in a week against the decision to decontrol the petroleum product prices. This hartal too, like other previous ones, is going to be a 'massive hit', as they say. Mind you, while the rest of the country is going to reel under the effect of 'Bharth bandh', we in Kerala will be having a mere 'hartal'. The bandhs are formally banned in Kerala since the High Court verdict.
Why are hartals successes in Kerala? It is because the average Malayali is a perfect mixture of laziness and cowardice. S/he will not go out for two specific reasons:
1. This is a day you get to enjoy. You can see long queues in front of the Beverages Corporation's liquor shops and poultry stores on the day before the hartals. No one wants to venture outside to spoil the 'Marx-given manna' of a holiday.
2. You fear for your life/vehicle/property. We are so used to the sights of broken glasses of the KSRTC buses and burnt down vehicles that appear on the news channels in the nights of hartals that nobody even thinks of risking their precious four-wheelers. Now, even the state-run KSRTC is not an exception.
The matter of the fact is, Kerala is dominated by two sectors - agriculture and services. Agriculture cannot be very much affected by these hartals. The people who work in the services sector are only thankful to get a day all for themselves, given that most of them work for six days a week rather than five. The hartal, therefore, comes as a relief.
The only vehicles that seem to ply today are the vehicles of the ISRO, the firms of the Technopark and some mopeds. The life in the state is 'paralysed', as the Malayalis want to celebrate a day with the liquor bottles they are so fond of. They have little real concern about how the common man is going to be affected by the price rise.
After all, in a state where crores and crores of rupees are spent on conspicuous consumption, in a state where even the lowest strata of the society indulges in blatant consumerism, how on earth is a few rupees' increase in prices of petroleum products going to matter?
P.S: I know that the price rise is going to affect the Malayalis more than the people of any other state as we are dependent on others even for the food we consume. As the ultimate consumers in the great market of India, we are the ones who are going to be fleeced the most. But these hartals or bandhs are not going to force the Centre to change its decision. It is hell bent on cutting its deficits to find funds for its social security programmes. So these are perfectly useless ways to waste our time, money and energy. Still, who cares as long as we get a holiday?
3 comments:
Did you see the Ad that the central govt petroleum ministry published in the newspapers against the bharatband? ofcourse it's hightime we invent innovative methods of protest, but how can the govt. keep mum about the profit they'll make in the 3G and broadband auctions?
OK. They made huge profits from the 3G and broadband auctions. But have you seen the huge outlay for the Right to Education Bill and the MNREGA? Now the Food Security Bill will come. The Government has to find the money to do all this. It cannot go on running on deficit budgets. While embarking on a new project or deciding on continuing with a new one, economic viability has to be given as important a place as its social impact for long term sustainability of the project. Subsidising petroleum products actually helped the upper middle classes more than the lower classes. So the government changed its priorities. Now the money will go to Food Security and Right to Education which will help the people at the bottom of the pyramid. This is actually a step in the right direction.
As an example, who benefits out of the subsidy for LPG cylinders? Hotel owners and vehicle owners and not the ordinary poor women in rural areas. If that money goes to ensure that her family has sufficient food to eat, I would call it a progressive action and not a regressive one.
i too support the case with petrol and lpg but diesel prices shudn't have been hiked..it's directly goin to effect the hand to mouth earners. And yes, it's high time the govt. show sum guts to take away the extra perks lyk reimbursements for high earning govt. officials.
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