Rail-road blockades: Civic responsibility and common sense lost in protests

Protesting students have again blocked the railway. 

Just earlier this month, Students of Titumir College blocked the railway tracks at Mohakhali area demanding Titumir College to be turned into a university. Some of the protesters even pelted stones at a halted train injuring some passengers.

Today, students in Gazipur have blocked the railway line in the Kaliakair Hi-Tech Rail Station area, demanding the renaming of Bangabandhu Digital University to Bangladesh Digital University. They blocked the railway tracks in the morning, halting rail communication between Dhaka and the northern part of the country.

Blocking roads in protests is a commonplace nowadays. Since the interim government took office after the fall of Hasina regime, hundreds of protests took place only in the capital. In all of the cases, the protesters blocked crucial roads and intersections, crippling city traffic.

On one hand, this shows that the government, that came through protests, is willing to let people vent out their frustrations and place their demands. The advisers have also said this publicly.

On the other hand, blocking railways and major roads shows that protesters are exploiting the government's soft approach to handle protests.

In the 2000s, Dhaka University saw a good number of protests, one of which even led to the resignation of its vice chancellor and the proctor. Many of the protest rallies were aimed at the home ministry, the secretariat or the Shahbagh intersection. Back then, it was known to the student protesters that they would be barred by the police in front of Curzon Hall or the National Museum.

And everytime, a clash would erupt between the protesters and the police. But eventually, the protest programmes would be contained inside the campus.

It was the months-long 2013 Shahbagh protests when we discovered for the first time that Shahbagh intersection can be taken by the protesters, that too, under the government's clandestine support!

Later, the Movement against Quota in 2018, and the Movement against Discrimination last year – which culminated in the mass uprising against Hasina's regime – also blocked many roads and intersections and even highways, which was marked by the huge presence of students, and later by people from all walks of life.

This is probably how road and rail blockades during all kinds of protests became normalised.

But these post-uprising blockades, such as by the Titumir College students and today's protesters have created widespread discontent among the public. 

Rail blockades are much worse than road blockades in a sense that people can walk and switch vehicles in the latter case to reach their destinations. But once the train schedules are broken due to blockades, the Railway needs at least a day to restore it. In the meantime, passengers of all ages undergo tremendous suffering.

Civic sense must prevail

Once the country has been freed from the grip of the most notorious, mass-murdering despot in the country's history, people really need to get some relief, so that they can go back to their normal life and do what they do to sustain their families and drive the economy of the country.

Petty demands like renaming an institution or turning a college into a university must not cause widespread public suffering and cripple the economy.

Six months back, the students and the people came together to achieve something that even a year ago seemed unachievable, and now we have a government that was tasked with a democratic transition that everyone needs.

While people would naturally have their demands, they must find a way to place it before the government without jeopardizing public life. 

All protesters must cling to civic sense and responsibility.