Television channels are tut-tutting the bandh and sermonising about lodging a protest in other  (undisclosed) ways. Facebook has a string of comments from educated friends condemning the bandh call and making corny jokes on politicians in 'bandh' galas etc. As I have said in a previous post -- quite some time back now -- education makes us snooty and stupid and far far removed from reality. And that includes me, no doubt.

I can see the point they are making. Bandhs achieve no real purpose except to incovenience a whole lot of people and is just too downmarket a thing for a liberal, right-thinking (as opposed to right-wing-thinking) person to do. Sure, that makes sense. My heart goes out to the day labourers, and casual workers who depend on their day's income to get food. A bandh grievously handicaps them.

The worst victims of a bandh are patients who suffer in several ways. An ill person who cannot be taken to the hospital on time or operations get postponed or general negligence in treatment because of inadequate staff or inability of relatives to mobilise blood or medicines (we have faced this and know what it feels like) or the worst of all, inability to reach emergency treatment in time.

I totally feel for these two categories of people and would oppose bandhs if only for this reason.

But my moot point is, is there any other way to let a government know it is in the wrong? Dharnas and morchas and fasts no longer work,. We have become inured to them. And unless we go raiding the state armoury and create a shoot-at-sight anarchy, there is no way the government of the day -the incumbent one led by an especially thick-skinned Congress - is ever going to feel the pulse and fury of a people long brutalised in various ways, in this case, by monthly price hikes.

I am opposed to bandhs used as a tool for political oneupmanship. But while a bandh like the one we had today may have decided political overtones, it is necessary to propel the cause of the common man. The united show of opposition to the fuel price hike will most likely achieve at least one single purpose of keeping another hike at bay for a while.

A fuel price hike doesnt really affect the bhadralok who can afford to raise eyebrows at these political antics. But the aam janta around us - the domestic help, watchmen, liftman, gardener, driver, is badly beaten  by inflation and wouldnt mind a leg-up in whichever form.

If the bandh manages to stall yet another shameless spiral of inflation even if for a while, he/she will get a breather. While the patient's troubles are visible and tangible, those of the underprivileged lot remain unnoticed until a show of might pushes it to the foreground.