Law is maintained only as long as it is respected.

I always wondered what is it that maintains order in our lives. What ensures total silence in the cinema when the movie is starting? What is it that assures that the viewers in an art gallery do not go around touching their exhibits with their dirty stubby fingers? What forces a patient to pay at a clinic after a consultation and the customer settle his bill after enjoying (or hating) his meal? They can jolly well just scoot off, now that their mission is accomplished. 

Well, it can happen with the occasional client who refuses to pay, but that is not the norm. Perhaps he is dissatisfied with the service or just because he can. Rather than creating a scene and draw unwanted publicity, the service provider would probably write it off as miscellaneous loss of doing business. To the rest, they know the long arm of the law would get them. They know that as the majority support orderly running of life transactions, they would not garner support against a sea of law-abiding supporters no matter how justified the lawbreaker can be with his wrongdoings. 

The balance will be tipped when the majority starts distrusting the institutions that maintain law and order. Anarchy prevails when the majority begins disrespecting the law. Law must be just and seen to be fair. Public perception is all to it. People hold law enforcement to high esteem not because they are scared of the law, they simply respect too much. 

Ask the British East India Company and the British Empire. They would tell you how a puny force managed to overpower and bring down a nation of many millions over - too much respect given to authority.

Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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