Order- that comes first, not law. Laws are made by us. Order comes from within. And that order, which was an integral part of the Indian society every since this country is known in the pages of history, was broken by the Mughal and British rule. There is no doubt in that. And did any of our nation builders take this into consideration? No. They sure made laws, laws for everything. But where were those laws borrowed from? From Britain. British-educated Gandhi and Nehru, who couldn’t relate to the common man, made the laws that are to this day followed like religion. Is that an ‘attitude’ problem? Not in my opinion.
To quote an example, until before the period of Vajpayee as PM, budget presentation in the parliament used to commence at 5PM. Know why? Because budgets in Britain were presented at 11:30AM. The great fathers of this nation had been so extraordinarily intelligent that for almost 50 years a session in parliament was from 5PM to midnight. Perfect calculation of GMT+5:30, isn’t it? Fortunate or unfortunate, Vajpayee did something that made sense and changed the start of the session to before noon.
Anything and everything that’s foreign is looked up at with awe by us. That, in my opinion, is the most basic issue. Now, no one is asking us to go back 2000 years and follow traditional Indian practices. Shouldn’t we take pride in our culture and tradition? We obviously lack that in every sense. Due to lack of knowledge and pride about our own past, we don’t have any idea why we are what we are at present; and this in turn makes us wonder what’s in store for us in the future.
Changing oneself and being a good, law-abiding citizen helps, but it’s of no use to the society in the bigger picture and in the longer run. Noble people are meant to teach, preach and serve. They are supposed to work for the amelioration of the poor and the downtrodden. That kind of action helps in bringing order, and sensible law will follow as day follows night. The first and best example in this case is none else but our very own NRN. Another living example would be Dr. Kalam.
