Hartal

Hartal is a form of mass protest in which civil servants, school teachers, and other groups of professionals stop working and close their organizations, typically for a day or a part of a day, to protest against government policies, laws, or other grievances.

The term Hartal comes from the Malay term "hartal" which literally means "to dissolve or to stop", and it has been used in various contexts in Southeast Asia, particularly in India and Sri Lanka.

In Bangladesh, the Hartal is a common form of protest, where all shopkeepers, traders, transport operators, and thousands of students along with teachers join and organize against the government policies. It became a technique of filing public protests and long marches after August 1946, and was organized to culminate the direct confrontation against the British colonial and Pakistani governments.

The strategy of Hartal is to disrupt the economic and social life of the cities by getting the population to stay indoors and stop working, keeping everything closed until demands are made to the government. It creates a blockade effect where large gathering of thousands of people create street violence and grab national attention forcing the government or politicians into concessions.

The Hartal is not the same as a general strike; in a general strike all economic activity come to a standstill, including public and essential services, whereas a Hartal focuses on bringing business to a halt of those involved but allows essential services, such as schools and public transportation, to remain operational. The resolution of public Hartal demands has sometimes included the implementation of additional perks for the protesting professionals, in the best interests of national solidarity.