The current upsurge of labour strikes all over the country has once again brought to the forefront the same rhetoric of 'work harder instead of complaining'. For the urban non-labour part of the population to respond to labour strikes in this fashion, by emphasising on a lack of hard work ethos, is not a first by any means and has been in use ever since the intense process of industrialisation started in the early 1950s.

At the time of the subcontinent's partition, an industrial infrastructure was almost non-existent in the nascent state of Pakistan. Unlike India, Pakistan had no major factories (with the exception of Dalmia Cement Factory in Karachi, Sir Sri Ram's Cotton Mills in Lyallpur and the Premier Sugar Mills in Mardan). The serious deficiency of industrial infrastructure and non-existence of an indigenous industrial capitalist class presented the state of Pakistan, with its notion of 'modernity', a very discomforting picture.

It was at that time widely believed that, in the absence of a strong industrial base, Pakistan would not be able to survive as an independent state. It was this placing of industrialisation with modernisation that led the state, which even though was controlled primarily by the land-owning class and rich professional merchants, to take the onus upon itself to develop an industrial base and start an intense drive to 'industrialise' the nation.

In order to achieve the intended degree of industrial growth, three categories of people were deemed essential: investors, labourers and technical functionaries. To rope in the investors, a series of subsidies, tax cuts and other investment-friendly policies were implemented. It was the latter two that presented more of an intellectual challenge to the state's goal of industrialisation, since both labourers and students (who were seen as future technical functionaries), as actors in the anti-colonial struggle, had a rich history of rebelling against the state and using anti-establishment tactics. How was the state to ensure a stable supply of dedicated labourers and students? Just like any other government in the world, this was achieved through a mixture of coercive and persuasive techniques. However, unlike most 'liberalised' governments, coercive techniques got precedence over persuasive techniques in Pakistan.

In the case of students, who by their very definition are the most educated section of the population, and hence subscribers to post-enlightenment conceptions of human rights, persuasive techniques took precedence over coercive techniques, though they were always backed by more real threats of police action. The persuasive technique manifested itself through the loaded rhetoric of 'discipline'. "As the cream of our rising society, it is in their hands that the future of the country shall ultimately lay and it is up to them to set the highest example of disciplined behaviour," Ayub Khan said in a public address in 1961, after student agitation in Dhaka and Karachi.

Wrapped within patriotic fervour, students were continuously drilled with this rhetoric of discipline. Those who detracted from the given path of discipline were almost immediately alienated and often dealt with brute force for their 'indiscipline'. This mantra of discipline required of the student to remain focused on their education as per the curriculum prescribes, and not to invest in areas that lay outside of their immediate concern.

In response to the student demonstrations against the murder of the Congo leader Patrice Lumumba and the massacre of Muslims in Jabalpur in 1961, one of the ministers said: "The students are agitating for some demands which do not even fall into the orbits of their interest." An almost absolute no-go area for students under this policy of promoting discipline was the field of politics. For a vast majority of the 'non-political' population till today, student politics are only for the ghundas and 'failures'. Student leaders within popular perception continue to be looked down upon for not being 'disciplined' enough.

Unlike students, labourers happen to be a much less educated section of the population. Especially after the imposition of ban on labour unions, which had given them some space to barter with the state on the basis of citizenship and human rights, labourers have been placed outside the state and continue to be treated by it as subjects rather than citizens.

Due to the fact that labourers are being placed outside the 'liberalised' portions of the population, the state continues to use colonial style coercive techniques against them. Unlike the persuasive techniques used against students, the state has been much more willing to use a heavy-handed approach against labourers. The November 8, 1972, firing on labour protests in Karachi's SITE area, which resulted in a large number of casualties, and the massacre of workers in Multan's Colony Textile Mills during the Zia regime stand as two glaring examples of the state's readiness to use brutal tactics.

Even though labourers themselves were not necessarily bombarded with persuasive rhetoric intended to keep them in order (the danda and the threat of being fired upon with no recourse to the law proving enough to keep them under control), the investor and the technical functionary classes that remained in close contact with them were prevented from developing sympathies for the agitating labourers. Since these two classes, due to being members of civil society, carried with them set conceptions of citizen rights and human rights, they needed to be convinced that the treatment of labourers was not in total contradiction to these high ideals.

It is here that this rhetoric of labourers lacking hard work ethos fits in. This rhetoric has been given a new life following the spate of labour movements against the privatisation of major public entities. Civil society representatives and the non-labour portion of the population have been made to believe that the protests are encouraged not by the threat of possible lay-offs in the future, but are rather due to the unwillingness of labourers to work under the cut-throat and efficient model of private corporations.

As it stands, to be against the persuasive techniques of the state seems like the right thing to do, because most of these techniques are intended to benefit a select few at the cost of the masses. But what if a government comes to power that stands for the very policies that we as individuals support? Would we then support the state in its attempts to achieve order through these persuasive techniques? To establish a certain degree of order is necessary for any government to rule effectively. Should we then support these disciplinary measures provided they are not intended to benefit a certain class? If not than what should be our mode of resistance, considering the fact that stand alone both ‘Discipline’ and ‘ethic of hard work’ are qualities that one should aim for? How should we separate these qualities from the politics they represent?