51�Թ�

In response, the Indian National Congress resolved to welcome the prince to Bombay with a hartal or strike, and bonfires of foreign-made cloth, a symbol of Britain's economic imperialism.

For weeks, Bangladesh had been gripped by a hartal, a nationwide general strike and “transportation blockade.”

The hartal, called by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was an effort to pressure Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina into holding new elections.

“But with the hartal, there will be almost no traffic. Traffic will be O.K.”

Every time I have ever asked members of the BNP why they employ the hartal form of protest, the answer has always been that they feel they have no other choice to make their voices heard.