The BNP general secretary responded positively to the proposal, adding his suggestions for the enactment of a law prohibiting absence in parliament and a ban on siege programs and student politics. AL and BNP leadership ought to have no reason to disagree with such propositions, given that the interest of the country remains uppermost in their minds.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has estimated that the average toll of hartals on the economy is between 3 and 4 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually. The study report, titled "Beyond Hartals: Towards Democratic Dialogue in Bangladesh" released by UNDP, said that a total of 139 countrywide day-long hartals were enforced in the 1990s, with the highest GDP loss (over 9 percent) during the fiscal years of 1994-95, 1995-96, and 1998-99.

The UNDP study cited a World Bank report published in 2001 saying that during the 1990s, approximately 5 percent of the annual GDP was lost due to hartals. While releasing the study report, Mr. Jorgen Lissner, the UNDP Resident Representative in Bangladesh said that: "Since the restoration of democracy in Bangladesh in 1991, the frequency of hartals has increased dramatically. From 1995 to 2002, for example, 611 hartals were called, compared to the period from 1947 to 1954, when only six hartals were called to oppose language restrictions."

The major opposition political leaders shared the same views as in the report released by the UNDP regarding the negative impact of hartals on economy but also said that the attitude of the government forces them to call hartals. It is recorded that AL and BNP have agreed in the past that hartals are detrimental to the country's economy, but sadly enough, they tend to forget on such agreements when they lose power.

The AL finance minister late Shah AMS Kibria told a seminar in 1998 that Bangladesh suffered a loss of Tk 386 crore in a day's hartal. If this assessment is correct, then the national economy has already suffered a loss of Tk 4,632 crore for 12 dawn-to-dusk country-wide hartals enforced by the major political parties during the last few months.

Civil society and business leaders have repeatedly requested the country's mainstream opposition political leaders to put an end to the unabated politics of hartals and sieges, considering its harmful effects on the national economy and business.

The leaders have devised the human wall program to press the government into accepting their demands, but they soon returned to the use of hartals.

The history of this land provides ample proof of the positive role that the hartals have played in the political evolution of the country since early 1960s. However, now the hartal has lost its positive role and effectiveness as a political tool opposition parties use to achieve their political goals.

The country has been experiencing hartals one after another from the mid-eighties for which both the major political parties AL and BNP are equally responsible. The BNP has also imposed several hartals during their opposition period, demanding resignation of the AL government, accusing them of indulging in corruption, harassment of political rivals and failure to effectively run the administration. Agitated by repeated countrywide hartals, the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised that her party would never enforce hartals, even when it would go to the opposition.

Now the leader of the opposition, Sheikh Hasina, claims that she is forced to impose hartals, as the government does not accede to her demand for resignation. The people now do not observe the hartals spontaneously, though the callers demand so. The shops remain closed and automobiles stay off the streets in the fear of violent attacks and damages by opposition activists and the supporters of the hartal.

The fall-out from hartals and sieges on the economy is devastating. The economy frequently becomes the casualty of political actions like hartals and sieges. In fact the national economy is now a hostage to hartals. The common people of Bangladesh are looking helplessly to rid themselves of the curse of these unabated hartals and sieges.

Political protest is a matter of right in any democracy, but the way that the political parties of our country have been exercising their democratic rights are certainly not acceptable to the people. Such political actions are causing untold public misery and bleeding white to national economy. Therefore, the political parties should consider alternative methods to raise public concerns such as forming human walls, signature campaigns, mock parliaments, and sit-in program as suggested in the UNDP study report.

While enforcing a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal on July 4, protesting the killing of an AL activist during their countrywide blockage program, the leader of the opposition Sheikh Hasina informed the nation that each death that occurs in political violence will see another day of hartal. The Bangladeshi people are shocked at such an unwise remark coming from the leader of the opposition, as it is not the kind of sagacity our nation expects from a main political figure. If politics exists for the public's welfare, it must not and should not be a major cause of public misery.

It is really most unfortunate that neither the prime minister nor the leaders of the opposition have been able to reach beyond the narrow partisan territories that have been carved out for them. In such a situation where politics is in free-fall and so is the national economy, a point may come when the political leaders will lose their credibility altogether.

Fed up with on-again off-again hartals and sieges, conscious people have already lost their interest in politics and assume that the power-centred politics will certainly not raise any hope for the nation. Now is the time for political parties to pause and ponder as to whether they would exercise pro-people politics beneficial to the masses or adhere to the politics of confrontation causing untold public suffering.

ANM Nurul Haque is a columnist of The Daily Star.