India gets a taste of kerala medicine

In 2018, hartals claimed 97 working days in Kerala. Though 2019 was ushered in with a flurry of promises for the dawn of a new, hartal-free year, the state had to wait only for a couple of days before the first hartal was called on January 3. The second week of the new year has started with a 48-hour all-India strike called by the trade unions. The state was expecting yet another shutdown.

The signs were all too visible on Monday with people hoarding milk and bread while fuelling up and swiping out more cash than necessary.
Curiously, what Kerala witnessed on Tuesday was completely something else.

The state government went out on a limb to ensure that private establishments—especially small shops, restaurants, cab and food delivery services and metro rail—were allowed to function without too many hassles. But that does not mean there was no shutdown. The people who called the strike made sure that the trains and state-owned buses did not have a smooth run; almost all schools remained shut.

But the flights took off and landed and people who were headed to the airports were spared. Tourism, the single largest industry vertical in the state, was mostly left alone, much to the relief of owners of houseboats and hill resorts. In fact a special effort was in place to make sure that the pilgrims coming to Sabarimala had an unhindered journey.

With the Kerala High Court’s Monday order mandating a seven-day notice period to organise a hartal, any future call for a total shutdown will no longer have the kind of urgent connect it enjoyed in the past. And as the state government is firming up its resolve to usher in an ordinance to penalise those damaging private property during bandhs, demonstrations, communal violence and road blockades called by political and religious groups, the menace caused by hartals could soon be a thing of the past. But the irony is the rest of India got a taste of the Kerala medicine on Tuesday.