Friday | 17 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Friday | 17 January 2025 | Epaper

Festival under the clutch of capitalism

Published : Monday, 3 July, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 229
Chinmay Prasun Biswas
Every nation has festivals which may be either social, religious, or local. It is very familiar in our personal, social, national and family life. Mostly, festival refers to a day or period of the year when people stop working to celebrate a special event, often a religious one (Eid, Puja, Christmas etc).
Any festival is undoubtedly a pleasure but it is accompanied by inevitable pressures and sufferings also in different ways like transport and communication, law and order, market price etc. Not only common people or toiling masses but people of all classes of society, rich or poor, male or female, aged or young face these troubles.  
The first hit comes to market price. It has become a tradition that price of essentials will increase. Newspapers and other media give us the same report every year before the arrival of festival.
Concerned authorities turn helpless. A report informs that price of essentials was hiked once before the advent of Ramadan and price has increased for the second time ahead of Eid.
There is no one to monitor the import price, wholesale price and retail price. Same is the case with rice, spices and other essentials also. Naturally, the question of financial survival of common people, particularly of low income group, becomes prominent but the matter does not end with market price only. It is known that price of common items are dwarfed to half on the occasion of festivals in Europe, America and Australia so that people of all classes can enjoy the pleasure of festival. And in Bangladesh, it is the opposite!
A major part of festival is journey homewards and back to working station but the process is never easy nor smooth; rather troublesome, hazardous, uncertain and risky. Tickets of bus, train and launches become golden deer. Pictures of long queue for tickets at railway stations, bus and launch terminals are found in newspapers and TV reports.
As number of tickets are limited but demand is endless, getting  a ticket, after a long wait of hours, is a matter of immense pleasure for a homebounder but that's simply the beginning of more hazards ahead.
From BIWTC sources, it is known that normally around 3000 buses cross the Padma at Paturia Goalanda point daily on 19 ferries but ahead of festival number of buses become double because outworn buses come on roads to meet increased number of passengers, though the number of ferries remains same!
Assurance comes from authority, repairing work begins, two lanes are declared to be extended to four lanes, money is spent from government, people remain eager to see improvement in next year but nothing brings any fruitful result. Situation of every year is a repetition of the earlier year.
Condition of waterways is not also brighter. A huge number of people of South Bengal depend on launches for communication with the capital. Naturally, demand of launches increase ahead of festival which is not possible to handle for regularly plying launches. So, unfit launches are given facelift to carry passengers. Dockyards of Keraniganj and Barisal become busy with repairing unfit and defective launches.
Dockyard owners say that they are not authorized to verify fitness of launches. BIWTC is the authority for it but officials say that as unfit launches do not use terminal for picking and dropping passengers, it becomes difficult for them to attach those launches. Rush on river is by no way less than that on rail or road.
Every festival is a period of earning more profit for launch owners. Fit or not, every launch carries passengers more than three times of approved capacity taking the risk of being drowned.
It seems, in Bangladesh, festival knows no law! Extra passengers make their own survival risky forgetting that festival day may turn into dooms day! It is quite evident that capitalism controls festivals as well.
Fares of bus and launch are also fixed by the government but collection of surplus fare ahead of festival is a regular matter because owners know the urgency of passengers and passengers are determined to go.
Rail, road and river -- these three are the mostly used modes of communication  which become fully overburdened  during festival.
Photograph of appalling accident resulting from dangerous drive on road,  risky ride on rooftops of bus and train, perilous practice of boarding on unfit lethal launches, extreme effort to get into trains through windows are common sights on newspapers and TV screens every year ahead of festival.
A sad news of death 16 homebound persons by accident of a cement laden truck at Pirganj upazilla in Rangpur has been published in many newspaper. Among others, Saddam Hossain, a garments worker, carrying red frock and heel sandals for his two children, also died. Where is the consolation of those two innocent children?
In this way festival sometimes turns fatal snatching away lives. Even after that, such dangerous journey has not stopped. Festival knows no limit.
In addition, even during the biggest festival, amid apprehension of mugging, theft, robbery and militant attack, as devils do not listen to scriptures, tight security measures are taken and members of law enforcing agencies have to remain at high alert on ceaseless performance of duties to ensure survival of people.
Arrival of festival is not sudden but certain. Holidaymakers and all concerned are aware of it. Can't the voyage of festival be made free from the risk of survival?

The writer is a Commissioner of Taxes (Rtd)





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