Importance of Discipline In Public Life

DISCIPLINE IN PUBLIC LIFE

 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 caked discipline. All talk of equity or social justice becomes a cry in the wilderness or a pompous promise if the’ power that be’ fail to comprehend and carry out the dictates of  discipline at all costs and in all situations. With discipline as 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 organized in our country is another are 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 all 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 proceeding. Defection, 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 or election. In place of issues, intimidation of voters, and instead of performance pressure 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 dealing, 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. Hose 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.