The government, for its part, deployed the police to ensure the security of the marchers. Strangely enough, this routine job appeared to be an exceptional one, as the police have on most occasions been very hostile to the demonstrators, which inevitably resulted in violence. If a road march could proceed so smoothly under the close vigil of the security personnel, what was the compelling necessity to aggressively intercept the opposition processions in the recent days?

The opposition has heeded the good counseling of the sane elements in society who have always been opposing hartal as a means of putting pressure on the government or attaining any political goal. The damage that a hartal causes to the country far outweighs the political gains (if any) made by the opposition. So, the emphasis has been on finding out less disruptive ways of expressing dissent.

Though people suffered due to the traffic jams on the roads during the march, there was the general sense of relief as no untoward incident happened. It was essentially a matter of allowing some space to the opposition -- something that the Awami League and its allies have been complaining about for a long time.

The issues like public inconvenience, disruption of normal life, and subvertion of economy have to be treated in all seriousness by the political parties on either side of the divide. It has been a sad feature of our politics that the parties have failed to make the parliament the centre of all political activities. They tend to rely on street agitation, which often turns out to be highly disruptive to the busy city life. It is time the parties chose peaceful ways of demonstration, like they did on this occasion, without causing worries to citizens.