THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Law Reforms Commission appointed by the LDF government has recommended a ban on bandhs (forced shutdowns) and restrictions on hartals, the voluntary ones. Kerala is a victim of frequent shutdowns.

The “God’s Own Country” was subject to 80 shutdowns during the past six months (including local and regional ones) hitting hard its booming tourism and fledgling software industries.

According to the Kerala chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a single day’s shutdown costs the state somewhere around 700 crore rupees, which is 233 rupees per capita while an average Keralite earns less than 150 rupees a day.

The bill named the Kerala Prohibition of Bandhs and Regulation of Hartals Bill, says no person shall hitherto have the right to conduct any bandh or hartal except in a manner as permitted in the bill. However, the bill proposed by the commission headed by former Supreme Court Judge and Kerala’s first Home Minister V. R. Krishna Iyer, suggests no restrictions on strikes by workers as permitted by the existing labor laws.

The panel suggests that a committee be formed for giving permission for hartals and explicitly bans “hartal or allied operations” without the permission of the committee consisting of the state governor, a former Kerala High Court (HC) chief justice and the speaker of the sate assembly.

The panel should receive the “applications” for holding shutdowns at least seven days in advance and the organizers need to give an undertaking that the call will be purely for voluntary shutdown “without coercion, pressure or threat of danger to the person or property of the public or of any other evil consequence”. Freedom of movement and the normal functioning of any public institution or utility services shall not be hindered. There will be a ban on predawn and post-dusk hartals and the hartals should not hit the “normal functioning of any public institutions, utility services or any center or organizations giving relief to a human being or compassionate succor to any living creature”.

The bill also recommends a fund for payment of compensation to the victims of bandhs and hartals and those who call the shutdowns are liable to pay compensations for the damages. The violators of restrictions and undertakings face six months in prison or a fine of up to 50,000 rupees.

In Kerala, fringe groups that have no elected representative even in local bodies enforce shutdowns “successfully” as the traders shut shops and stay indoors for fear of violence. Vehicles fear to venture out. The state government also lends support by declaring holidays for educational institutions and postponing public exams. The government itself ensured “success” of three shutdowns the Left Democratic Front (LDF) called since it came to power two years back.

Last month’s national strike called by the left unions protesting “inflation” was a “huge success” as leaders of the left parties stalled trains and blocked roads the previous night itself.

The state-sponsored shutdown forced the shops, schools, factories and businesses to remain closed throughout the day and the television footages of a weeping young lady at a railway station not being able to be at the bedside of her dying child moved the entire state.

Kerala HC was the first to ban bandhs in 1998, which was later upheld by the apex court and made applicable to the entire country, but soon politicians began calling hartals to enforce bandh. The HC again intervened and held the government responsible for the free movement of people.

In 2004, a full bench of the HC ruled that the state should take measures to ensure that the normal life is not paralyzed and those who call hartals or strikes should not compel anyone to participate, that the traffic would not be obstructed and those who are willing can go for work and that their fundamental right to movement would not be affected. Rejecting the government’s claim that the people enjoyed shutdowns, the court recently asked it to call in the army if necessary to see to it that the normal life was not hit and the court order was carried out in its real spirit. The court is to hear public interest litigation for damages from the state government for abetting last month’s shutdown.

According to a study by the Institute for Enterprise Culture and Entrepreneurship Development, the higher incidence of shutdowns also contributes to the criminalization of Kerala politics.