From the Chief Minister to the Calcutta High Court, everyone has expressed helplessness in checking the culture of bandhs in West Bengal. However, so far it has made little difference.

In fact, if the recent nationwide bandh called by the Left trade unions was a “success”, it was so basically in West Bengal and the Left-ruled Kerala.

In 2008, West Bengal has seen five state-wide bandhs, of them three called by the Left — the Forward Bloc, the Left Front and the CPI(M)’s labour wing CITU. If the Forward Bloc called a bandh in the wake of the police firing on its supporters in Dinhata, the CPI(M) announced a bandh to protest against the arrest of its Hooghly leader Suhrid Dutta in the Tapasi Mallik murder case of Singur, while there have been several bandhs on the fuel price hike.

Each bandh has paralysed city life. Vehicular transport went off roads, train services were severely disrupted, shops downed shutters all through the day and even public offices registered poor attendance. Each bandh, there were calls for keeping Information Technology — the sunrise sector — out. But during each bandh the functioning of these 24X7 service providers has been affected.

The ripple effect of such bandhs has been quite remarkable, with cancellation of foreign business delegations arriving in the city. There have been instances where Kolkata has been dropped off from the itinerary of business delegates.

In 2006, there were around five bandhs in West Bengal, with at least three being scheduled in December 2006. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had to suffer the ignominy of seeing US Ambassador David Mulford leave the city on November 30 to avoid the first bandh on December 1. This was followed by the news that a high-level Romanian trade team had cancelled its December 6, 2006, programme.

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