27th August 2008 - Small town bandhs, big time harassment

How do you communicate about a bandh call to the people? If no newspaper reports about the call, if no television breaks this news, any bandh will remain unsuccessful. Bandhs are made highly successful by the media because it gives prominent space to the call and thereby people stay indoors - especially in areas where newspaper penetration and literacy is high like Kerala, West Bengal etc. That is why a 12-hour bandh at Narhatta gram panchayat in protest against the murder of a CPI-M worker to mentioned in Kolkata and automatically those who called for bandhs got their due and recognition. Then why is this blog putting up this news is the next natural question. This is a documentation and not news gathering which means documenting bandhs happen after the bandh is over.