For about a decade from the later part of the Ayub dictatorship until the overthrow of the Bhutto regime, Pakistani society was in the throes of what could be called a revolutionary upsurge. A wide cross-section of society was motivated and mobilised to take on and replace the established order. Never before had ordinary people been allowed to believe that they could change the world.

While the right-wing, and particularly religio-political groups, were becoming increasingly influential by this time, it was undoubtedly the left that played the vanguard role in those heady days. That much of the left’s thunder was eventually stolen by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is not to be understated. But regardless of the left’s failings, there is little question that without its ideas and organisational capacities, a revolutionary moment would not have come to pass.

Unfortunately, the full-fledged transformation that so many political workers and ordinary people alike had envisioned never materialised. With the deposal of the PPP government began a counter-revolutionary era with no precedent during which most of the gains made during the previous period were rolled back.

Presently, we are not in anything like a ‘revolutionary’ moment

The counter-revolution was not limited to Pakistan. Indeed the left suffered defeat after heartbreaking defeat in one country after the next; while the domino effect started with the overthrow of the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the trend was decisively consolidated after Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power in 1979.

What Reagan explicitly called the policy of ‘rollback’ was unleashed upon the world in the 1980s. While analysis of the shifts that have taken place under the guise of ‘rollback’ typically focuses on the reduced role of the state in the economy and the attendant globalisation of capital, as significant has been the change in the tone and tenor of politics, and particularly the political imaginary of change.

So the right-wing ‘Tea Party’ can claim to be the face of change in America while reactionary ‘civil society’ movements purportedly committed to challenging political dynasties of various kinds rear their head with startling regularity in all parts of Asia and Africa. Only in Latin America is change of the ‘old’ leftist variety still talked about, and even made into a reality, in the shape of elected leftist presidents in half a dozen countries of that region.

I have come across more than one comment in recent times comparing the upsurge of the late 1960s and early 1970s with what is going on in Pakistan today under pretext of ‘revolution’. Most of the ‘experts’ focus on similarities and/or differences between individuals such as Bhutto and Imran Khan. Needless to say, any comparison of two such differing eras requires us to go beyond the role of individuals, no matter what their political calibre or popularity.

First, it is preposterous to suggest that we are presently in anything like a ‘revolutionary’ moment. While we are in the midst of a relative breakdown of the hegemonic order, not unlike the situation during the late 1960s and particularly following the secession of East Pakistan, there are nothing like the mobilised constituencies of that era in today’s Pakistan.

Notwithstanding the rhetoric, does anyone outside of the elite ghettoes that can’t get enough of Imran Khan actually believe that Pakistan is on the cusp of social transformation? Where are the workers and peasants of yesteryear? Much has been made of the ‘youth’ but as someone who comes into contact with young people regularly, I can testify to the mind-numbing alienation of most of today’s educated youth. They generally scoff at the handful of their peers who take even an interest in matters of collective concern, let alone ideological politics.

Indeed, ordinary people are active regularly only in ethnic-national movements. This is that segment of the Pakistani population that is completely unconnected with the Imran Khans and Tahirul Qadris of the world. While the revolutionary upsurge in the 1960s and 1970s was also concentrated in certain parts of the country, it was nevertheless the case that no one was completely aloof from what was going on. In today’s Pakistan very few people outside of those committed to national liberation struggles believe in ideas of transformation, let alone participate in such political projects.

In fact, notwithstanding a sting in the tail, the fact that the ‘azadi march’ and ‘Qadri revolution’ are proving to be little more than damp squibs confirms another major difference between the revolutionary heights of the 20th century and today’s counter-revolutionary era; while in the past revolutions actually had to be built from the ground-up by the genuinely downtrodden, today ‘revolutionary’ dramas can be concocted by the TV media. It is thus that rollback continues, and the right wing prospers.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2014