Discipline in public life ensures peace and harmony which in turn
offers impetus to the forces of progress and prosperity. No country, big or small, can afford to play duck and drakes with the deity called discipline,
All talk of equity or social justice becomes a cry in the wilderness or a
pompous promise if the ‘powers that be’ fail to comprehend and carry out
the dictates of discipline at all costs and in all situations. With discipline a
a way of life, all plans, policies and programmes are bound to bear fruit.
Whenever people in public life or in private enterprise dilute the demands
of discipline, most aspirations and achievements go astray, leading to
failure and frustration at various levels. Discipline for countries like India,
which are standing at the threshold of economic breakthrough, and a
stupendous store of opportunities, is the most immediate and urgent pre-
requisite. Discipline for the rulers and the ruled is an essential ingredient
if we mean business in fields and factories.
The recent outbreak of plague’ and the wrong signals that this
limited epidemic’ sent across the world, was not an act of God as some
would like us to believe but the regretful result of unpardonable negligence
on the part of civic authorities. The woeful way the routine calls of duty
and discipline by paid public servants were given a go bye is a matter of
crying shame for one and all. The heaps of garbage in towns, cities and
metros were allowed to rot and their removal left to rag-pickers, speaks
volumes of the callous attitude towards discipline and devotion to duty. It
is high time that we sit up and do some serious heart searching.
The ease with which State/ opposition sponsored ‘Bandhs’ are
organised in our country is another area of concern. With discipline in
public life under a cloud, the entire socio-economic momentum is brought
to a grinding halt. When such is the sadistic approach towards discipline
there is nothing that can come to our rescue if some bigger calamity
overtakes us in future. The remedy of so many ills that afflict us today,
lies not in tall talk but in the restoration of discipline in public life.
Discipline is the only route that can take us to our rightful place among the
comity of nations.
The steady slide in discipline among elected representatives of
people manifests itself, more often than not, in State legislatures, where
less light and more heat is generated over issues of public interest.
Sometimes the drama of the absurd’ is enacted in such a way that all
decency of debate and deliberation are thrown to the winds and only lung
power of muscle-power becomes the norm of the proceedings. Defections,
floor-crossing, abductions and the like are a painful pointer to the near
collapse of discipline in public life. Still worse things happen at the time of elections. In place of issues, intimidation of voters, and instead of
performances,
pressures
become prominent. Vilification, vituperation and
even violence become the modus operandi of those who ought to have
presented themselves as specimens of discipline and decorum. Such is the
sad scenario that one has to witness every now and then, on ‘one pretext
or the other.’
The war Germany and Japan have become economic giants, after
having been reduced the ashes after the second world war, is not
something that we can attribute to some fluke or freak of fortune. Both the
countries have come to occupy their present economic supremacy due to
the unstinted faith of their rulers and the ruled in the golden principle of
hard work and discipline in their private and public life. In Pakistan, we
have vast man-power, technological expertise and natural resources. If we
could make discipline a part and parcel of our psyche and our day-to-day
dealings, there is nothing that we cannot aim at and achieve. Short of
plucking the stars from heaven, we can change the face of Pakistan if we
sincerely and seriously enforce the pristine principle of discipline in all
walks of Pakistan life, without fear or favour. Those sitting at the half of
affairs as well as those who are wielding State power, have to become
models of perception and performance, concept and conduct. There is no
short cut to development, nor any substitute of discipline. In fact
discipline, democracy and development go together, and any deviation in
their combination can leave us far behind the race of economic
independence and political stability. All said, discipline should be the
order in public life’ with no ifs and buts attached to it.