Sunday Times 2
Discipline, law and order and good governance
View(s):When we look around and see the appalling indiscipline that pervades society nowadays, one ruefully reflects and wonders where the long-cherished conventional standards of ethical behaviour and socially-accepted norms of conduct have gone!
Any cause, tenable or otherwise, seems good enough for disgruntled elements to launch unruly strikes and public demonstrations thereby disrupting the day-to-day activities of the people.
Unruly demonstrations disrupt day-to-day activities of the people. They should be stopped
As reported in the media on Tuesday, indiscipline took a new turn with students of two leading schools in Colombo, armed with poles and bottles, clashing publicly, with thirteen of them ending up in hospital and with some buses and vehicles being damaged in the melee!
On Wednesday, it was again reported that there had been a further clash between rival gangs within the same school! Its good to learn that tough action is being taken by the Police against the miscreants.
One is indeed, depressed and confounded by all these untoward happenings, trying to figure out where and what all this manic radicalism is leading to. What urgent corrective measures will the concerned authorities take to check this unnerving social malaise, before it leads the country to a hapless and irretrievable state of social anomie?
I have chosen what I consider, an apposite title deliberately, as my intention is to bring out the symbiotic relationship between the three normative prescriptions denoted by the three key words – DISCIPLINE, LAW AND ORDER AND GOOD GOVERNANCE!
The discerning citizen will know that the three are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Their complementarity is so integral that one cannot stand alone without the other two. This salient irrefutable verity appears to have been sadly not understood and, therefore, overlooked by the powers that be, who seem to opt to compartmentalise the three, for reasons of their own!
I would personally ascribe the escalation of these public protests to the failure of the concerned authorities to take effective action at the time the protests began to initially manifest themselves i.e. about one year ago. That was the time they should have effectively handled these protests sternly, without yielding tamely to their demands. Such acquiescence was bound to be taken as weakness by others biding their time, with their own demands. This was the time the authorities should have done some forward thinking and anticipated and defused the problem areas potential agitators were likely to capitalise on. More importantly, the powers that be should have had the gumption to make themselves less vulnerable by putting their own house in order. This is a fundamental prerequisite to good governance. If they had ensured the maintenance of strict discipline in public life, the enforcement of the law without fear or favour would have followed.
Now that all three areas seem to be in disarray, the powers that be should make a conscious, determined and ‘disciplined’ effort to resuscitate and re-establish these normative prescriptions which are basic prerequisites to the maintenance of social order, political and social stability.
- Diogenes