Wiktionary
n. (context India English) The closure of shops and offices, typically as a strike
Wikipedia
Hartal is a term in many South Asian languages for strike action, first used during the Indian Independence Movement (also known as the nationalist 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. A Hartal is often used for political reasons, for example by an opposition political party protesting against a government policy or action.
The term comes from Gujarati (હડતાળ haḍtāḷ or હડતાલ haḍtāl), signifying the closing down of shops and warehouses with the object of realizing a demand. Mahatma Gandhi, who hailed from Gujarat, used the term to refer to his anti- British general strikes, effectively institutionalizing the term. 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 localized public protest, for instance in Benares and Bardoli.
Hartals are still common in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, where it is often used to refer specifically to the 1953 Hartal of Ceylon. In Malaysia, the word was used to refer to various general strikes in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, such as the All- Malaya Hartal of 1947 and the Penang Hartal of 1967.
Another variant which is common in Hindi-speaking regions is the bhukh hartal which translates as hunger strike.
The word is also used in humorous sense to mean abstaining from work.
Usage examples of "hartal".
I'm sure I can put Hartal in the back carrier, so I can carry Nuvie when she gets tired.
She was holding Hartal on one hip and a shallow bone dish piled with baskets and implements on the other.
She found herself looking at Hartal closely, comparing him in her mind with the babies of the Clan.
His forehead was straighter and his head rounder, but they were not really so very different at this young age, she thought, except that Hartal laughed and giggled and cooed, and Clan babies did not make as many sounds.
Tronie's baby, Hartal, fed and contented, went to sleep quickly, but three-year-old Nuvie, struggling to keep her eyes open, wanted to join the others who were beginning to congregate at the Mammoth Hearth.
Tronie, complaining of a headache-she hadn't been feeling well that evening -- went to her hearth to nurse Hartal, and fell asleep.
He was sitting on a mat with Hartal on his lap, keeping the active baby occupied with a pile of bones, mostly deer vertebrae, so he wouldn't go crawling after his mother and scatter the beads she was helping Fralie make.
Without the hand-signal words, and the increased awareness they had brought of Rydag's intelligence and understanding, he would never have been allowed the responsibility of tending Hartal so his mother could work, not even right beside her.
Tronie had taken Tasher, who was between Nuvie and Hartal in age, to her hearth.
Most people were crowded into the cooking hearth, and when Rydag heard Hartal wake up, he got an idea.
With delight, Hartal ran toward the wolf, but his baby steps were unsteady.
Wolf yelped, but his only reaction was to lick the baby's face, which caused Hartal to giggle.
Ayla smiled at Rydag, knowing immediately that he had brought Hartal for exactly the purpose that had been achieved.
She cuddled Hartal to her, but it only made the toddler squirm to get away.
Ayla took Hartal from Tronie's arms, and was delighted at his giggle.