Leftists of all hues who uphold the ideal of a transformed society based on equity and equality resemble a bunch of pious believers who are respected but not followed, admired as well-meaning but not accepted as political leaders. How odd that people love to have all-encompassing transformation the Leftists advocate but politely refuse to entrust them with any semblance of power in the existing structure.

The reasons apparently are not difficult to fathom. One, people while nodding approval of the agenda of fundamental change know from their historically transmitted experience that it’s too idealistic to be a realisable objective, a dream that’s destined to remain a dream in foreseeable future. Two, people without doubting their intentions don’t find in the advocates of change leadership qualities that could set them apart from the pack.

The materialist ideology of the Left in Pakistan in general and in Punjab in particular has metamorphosed into metaphysics of sorts that envisages the changes in historical process as predetermined or ordained. So they paint a big picture of future with the phases which, in their opinion, would be inevitable product of the march of history whose course is fixed by the pre-existing conditions of moribund system.

One may ask the question as to why things are pre-determined in their system of thought as they are in the traditional metaphysics. What’s the role of complex politico-economic and socio-cultural factors operating invisibly and quietly for instance at subconscious and subterranean levels which are not taken into account. What is to be done with the human factor which is found invariably in an unpredictable state of flux?

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living,” wrote Karl Marx in ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’. The quote in no way can be taken as justification of historical determinism and the Left’s metaphysics. Marx is instead clearly hinting at what he famously called ‘realm of necessity’ whose understanding forms the bedrock of plans of possible revolutionary actions in future. If we add to this Lenin’s concept of the revolutionary vanguard party and active participation of working class in the process of historical change, we get the big picture.

The Russian Revolution (1917), the one of its kind in human history, would not have been possible, had there been no conscious human intervention led by Lenin in the historical process prevailing at that particular point in time. So if we look at two great figures of revolutionary theory and praxis, we find no traces of a kind of historical determinism and metaphysics the Left in our part of the world has been so gratuitously enamoured of. Consequently what we witness is the Leftists’ almost total disconnect with the people’s concrete and mundane problems that keep them in a perpetual state of misery and helplessness.

People desperately want a good road in their rundown neighbourhood and the Leftists ask them to wait for revolution without which it can’t be built. People want improved sewerage as their over-flowing gutters make their lives hell with their putrid smell and they are advised to wait for revolution which will solve all their problems. People are expected to defer what cannot be deferred. They must bear their painful present for some golden moment that lies somewhere in uncertain future. People pay back in the same coin by silently promising to accept them as their leaders sometime in future. So they never elect them as their representatives whenever elections are held. Another aspect of this conundrum is abject cultural poverty the Left suffers from. While preaching to ordinary people they remain untouched by their culture. An egregious example of such an attitude is found in the indifference of and contempt for the language(s) used by people. That’s one of the main reasons why they have not been able to evolve a ‘language’ that communicates to the people who are supposedly their strong constituency. They speak in alien language(s) and use terminology that sounds unfamiliarly bookish and thus unintelligible to common folks. And minuscule section that uses people’s language(s) suffers from a different kind of malaise; they are frozen in time as they refuse to leave behind the lure of the last vestiges of Russian and Chinese revolutions at the risk of being anachronistic.

In some cases employing of people’s language for expression and communication is self-defeating as its complex use and convoluted structure are all Greek to the intended readers/listeners like any other language people are unacquainted with. They are, in the words of poet Sultan Bahu, as good as Mullahs who ‘drift across the land carrying their books like monsoon clouds [about to burst]’. Smart among them have opted to be a part of non-governmental organisations network which focuses on certain issues thought to be relevant by the donors in the context of global market such as rights of women and minorities. Cutting a long story short, one can say the Left will not be even as weighty politically as a feather unless it drastically revises its stance on theory and praxis in the aftermath of IT revolution and globalisation.

Other significant historical events such as collapse of Soviet Union and new direction of Chinese state-backed capitalism have to be analysed and understood in the emergence of new socio-economic historical forces that have rendered some of the previous analytical tools almost useless. The Left or what remains of it has to do at least two things if it wants to be relevant to the march of history. On the one hand it must try to understand the global conditions which it finds incomprehensible and on the other organically connect with the local society and culture which it’s cut off from. The task is so demanding that undertaking it can be a daunting prospect in deed. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2019