Hartal

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Hartal (also hartaal) is a term in many Indian languages for strike action, used often during the Indian Independence Movement. It is mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience. In addition to being a general strike, it involves the voluntary closing of schools and places of business. It is a mode of appealing to the sympathies of a government to change an unpopular or unacceptable decision.[1]

Hartal was originally a Gujarati expression signifying the closing down of shops and warehouses with the object of realising a demand. MK Gandhi, the Indian national leader from Gujarat organised a series of anti-British general strikes which he called hartals, thereby institutionalizing it. In Bangladesh a hartal is a constitutionally recognised political method for articulating any political demand.[2]

In Sri Lanka, it is often used to refer specifically to the 1953 hartal of Ceylon. Hartals are still common in India, Bangladesh and in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.

The word hartal in India is also used in humorous sense to mean abstaining from work. The word is not pronounced the way it is written in the Roman script. Another variant which is common in Hindi-speaking regions is the bhukh hartal which translates as hunger strike.