Hartal (also hartaal) (Bengali: হরতাল; Hindi: हड़ताल; Urdu: ہڑتال) 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 (Father of the Indian Nation), who hailed from Gujarat, organised a series of anti-British general strikes which he called hartals, thereby institutionalizing it. The contemporary origins of such a form of public protest dates back to the British colonial rule in India. Repressive actions infringing on human rights by the colonial British Government and princely states against countrywide peaceful movement for ending British rule in India often triggered such localised public protest.
After the British conceded independence to India on 15 August 1947, Hartals in free India were often observed mostly as a mark of public sorrow to mourn the demise of public men and great leaders. It is also observed to mourn the deaths as a consequence of calamities, man-made or natural, that leave many people dead and injured. In Pakistan and Bangladesh a hartal is a recognised political method for articulating any political demand.
In Sri Lanka, it is often used to refer specifically to the 1953 hartal of Ceylon. Hartals are still common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and in northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
In Malaysia, the word "hartal" was used to refer to various general strikes in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, such as the All-Malaya hartal of 1947 and the Penang hartal of 1967.
The word hartal in India is also used in humorous sense to mean abstaining from work. Another variant which is common in Hindi-speaking regions is the bhukh hartal which translates as hunger strike.