Youth Ki Awaaz Special Correspondent Saahil Menghani got stuck because of the Bandh and failed to reach office for work. Read on as he writes about his experience and pens down his anger against the criminal act.

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Bandh? Problem? No it’s the solution… Really? BJP would have done the same thing had they been in power. It’s 10:39 now but I can’t go out for the work just because the frustrated supporters of BJP are lying on the road considering it as their home grown hierarchical property.

Prise rise is not entirely a failure of this government but a reflection of changes in the world economy. How can a government not increase the prices of oil when the commodity in the world market is being sold at a higher price. BJP and other opposition parties are blaming the government for being insensitive to the aam aadmi but Mr. Advani or Mr. Modi or Mr Gadkari, please answer one question, what would you have done? If your answer is that we had not increased the prices then there are only two words for you, ‘impractical and illogical’! (for those thinking about food, yes I oppose price rise of food, which is not affected by global phenomenon.)

Who will be held responsible if a pregnant lady is forced to deliver a child mid way just because of this stupid bandh? Who takes the accountability to respond in case an old aged person who suffered an heart attack dies mid-way while being taken to the hospital?

What if I have a meeting with an important client, or an auto driver needs to reach home to serve his ailing mother?

Police stopped me form going further ahead of the road outside my house. So the opposition that claims to be fighting for the common man is actually stopping his development by staging a bandh that is causing us a loss of approximately 20,000 crore. Is this bandh a frustration of all those parties who failed to come to power?

Ok, there are other better ways of countering price rise, certainly not a bandh. Why should a common man sacrifice his precious time? Where is his right to choose? Right to freedom of expression?

Coming back to my experience, the police man clearly stated, “tv nahi dekha? aaj bandh hai…” (haven’t you seen the news, it’s a bandh today…) On telling him that he was doing the wrong thing by stopping me and not the ones who created a menace, he said, “hum kya kar sakte hain, kar to aap sakte ho, vote aapke hath mein hain! ” [what can we do, you are the ones who can do something, the vote is in your hands] (very right!).

Yes the vote is in my hands. And one thing I will make sure of is not to vote for those who stage these bandhs just for their ulterior selfish motives, all in the name of the common man.

Protests were held at the time of our freedom struggle too, but all for a reason, independence. At a time when India is the world’s fastest growing free market democracy it is certainly very amateurish to stage a bandh rather than acting as a responsible opposition and creating awareness by meaningful methods. The poor and the downtrodden do not need these bandh’s to stop price rise, they need us, they need better and positive politicians.

At a time when there are people to whom the price rise matters less, minimal, negligible, there are people who are dying everyday for a single piece of bread, seeing which their eyes glee out of hunger. Yet, it is us, the comfortable citizen who rants about price rise. It is us who crib about the Government and the ‘system’, without really thinking or volunteering to join it and making the change we crib about.

Leave aside all debates, will this Bandh be able to curb price hike?

The best part is that youth seems to be uni-vocal on this issue. So much so that the word “Bharat Bandh” was a top trending topic on Twitter today. [Visit http://twitter.com/#search?q=Bharat%20Bandh to see the flow].

Find below what the youngistaan is saying about the Bharat Bandh today. Your voice matters a lot. Please do drop a comment, voice yourself, be the change.

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Do voice yourself by dropping in a comment or mailing us at [email protected]. You can also tweet us at @YouthKiAwaaz[polldaddy poll=3432981]