India was closed for business last Monday. A nation that much of the developed world considers a future competitor on the economic front was brought to a standstill by the rightwing Bharatiya Janata party and the Communist party of India (Marxist), which form a chunk of the opposition. Along with various regional parties, the two big parties on either end of India's political spectrum formed an alliance of convenience to call what the western press charitably refer to as a "general strike" or "protests", but what Indians consider a waste of time, a loss of day's wages or outright intimidation, depending on who you ask.
The Bharat bandh, which translates to "India closed", was ostensibly to protest an increase in fuel prices. Living up to climate change commitments made at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh last September and tackling a growing budget deficit at the same time, the government announced in late June that it would stop subsidising petrol and reduce subsidies on other polluting fossil fuels. But at a time when Indians are beginning to realise that our lovely new liberal economy – whose enviable growth rate of 7.4% is exceeded only by an astonishing inflation rate of nearly 13% – is bound to be affected by global currents, the sensible thing for a compassionate government to do would be to ease the pressure on families who can barely afford their daily fruit and veg.
Raising fuel prices at this point means a putative increase in essential commodities, public transport fares, cooking gas prices and, in essence, everything. The price of onions nearly brought down the BJP government in 1998 and similar discontent is brewing among Indians today. Families have already started to skip sides with their meals, meat is consumed on fewer days of the week and in the suburban commuter trains, the price of tomatoes is a hot topic. To that extent, some form of protest was necessary.
But the bandh, a favourite tool of opposition parties across the country, does more harm than good. The protest finds its roots in British India, when shutting the country down hurt the economy and therefore the imperial rulers of the time. In 2010, it costs the Indian economy Rs 130bn (£1.82bn), according to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry. But there are no longer any foreign masters to annoy with our passive-aggressive protestations. It is now just a matter of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
But perhaps the most hypocritical aspect of these entire shenanigans is that the opposition parties claim to be acting in the name of the "aam aadmi" or common man.
If the opposition parties were serious about their concern for the common man, one route open to them would be to reduce taxes on fuel in the states they govern. This would serve to offset the increase in prices that are a natural result of the national government's withdrawal of subsidies, helping consumers while allowing the country to honour its commitments to G20. Instead, the hardest hit by the bandh are the millions of daily-wage labourers, shopkeepers, rickshaw- and taxi-drivers – anybody who depends on getting to work to feed their family. For comfortable middle-class folk who get paid regardless of whether they go to work, Monday's bandh was, at worst, an excuse for an extended weekend. But for the so-called common man, the bandh was less voluntary protest and more stolen wages.
In Bombay, for example, activists from three rightwing parties were on the streets "enforcing" the bandh. These hooligans – who take to the streets from time to time to protest, among other things, young couples holding hands in public, shop signage in the English language, and migrants from North India – ensure the bandh is successful by intimidating, harassing and assaulting anyone on the streets. Taxi-drivers generally conclude that forsaking a day's wages is cheaper than replacing the windshield after some goon has put a rock through it.
Sixty-three years after India became an independent country, the quality of debate among our politicians has only deteriorated. Sixty years after we became a republic, we continue to use outmoded forms of protest that do more harm than good.