How the Recent Indo-Pak Conflict Exposed Fault Lines in the Pakistani Left
The Pakistani Left's divergent responses to the recent India-Pakistan conflict reveal deep ideological contradictions and strategic blind spots, underscoring the need for a renewed anti-imperialist politics attentive to indigenous struggles and overlapping imperial formations.
Following the Pahalgam attacks in Indian-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, 2025, Indian strikes on several sites in Pakistan and Pakistan's subsequent response ignited an intense debate within the Pakistani Left. Various groups attempted to analyze and respond to the underlying issues of the conflict, exposing historical contradictions that have been overlooked in Left analysis and practice due to the "issue-based" turn in Pakistani Left politics and a narrow focus on inter-elite contradictions locally and inter-imperialist geopolitics globally.
To analyze these responses, we employ three terms to broadly describe tendencies within the Pakistani Left (though we acknowledge that differences exist within these tendencies as well). The term orthodox Marxist refers to the historically pro-Soviet Left, which, following the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, adhered to official Soviet Marxism characterized by mechanical dialectics and economic and technological reductionism. When combined with Western Enlightenment narratives from the political writings and historiography influenced by the Progressive Writers Association (PWA), this tendency veers toward liberalism, with its politics primarily focused on opposing religious politics and promoting secular liberal democracy.
Due to internal errors, the Cold War, and the suppression of communist politics, many Left groups that initially supported the pro-China line during the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s and claimed adherence to Mao Zedong Thought also failed to develop an indigenous anti-revisionist line and advance in revolutionary practice. These groups, which eventually relegated their politics to electoral strategies and consciousness-raising efforts, are also weak theoretically, relying on pro-Soviet historiography and politics, and have failed to produce new or original analyses, especially in light of China's rise. The term traditional Left is used to collectively describe both these historically pro-China groups and the orthodox Marxist Left groups. While essential differences in theory and practice exist between Trotskyite and traditional Left groups, their positions regarding the India-Pakistan conflict are similar and are therefore addressed together in this article.
Finally, the term new Left refers to new groups and academic activists in the Pakistani Left who are influenced by various Western Marxist theories and emerging social movements, and are attempting to steer the theory and practice of the traditional Left.
We contrast the positions of these tendencies with the historical and evolving stance of the revolutionary Maoists in Pakistan, which includes groups such as the Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party (PMKP) that are working to develop a coherent Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line based on a concrete analysis of Pakistan, recognizing national liberation struggles and advocating for a worker-peasant and subaltern led new democratic revolutionary program. This categorization of Left groups, due to the article's scope, does not encompass various local and nationalist factions, national liberation movements, and worker, peasant, student, and women's groups that continue to evolve around diverse ideological tendencies.
After the Pahalgam attack, while the Pakistani Left was unanimously calling for peace, two war-mongering responses from the electoral Indian Left stirred controversy. These responses came from statements issued by the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)). Both parties propagated narratives consistent with the Indian government, blaming Pakistan for harboring terrorism and supporting direct strikes into Pakistani territory. They argued that the Indian response, termed "Operation Sindoor," was launched against terror strongholds in Pakistan and had been precisely carried out in a non-escalatory manner. CPI(M) even asserted that India had no choice but to maintain pressure on Pakistan.
While most Pakistani Left groups opposed these statements, they posed a significant challenge for orthodox Marxist groups in Pakistan that have historically tailed the CPI and CPI(M). For these groups, Pakistan has historically been viewed, unlike “secular” and “democratic” Nehruvian India, as a terrorist-supporting aggressor, with religious fundamentalism backed by the Pakistani military as the principal contradiction facing its masses. Given this historical perspective, the uncomfortable position of this segment of the Pakistani Left during the current conflict was apparent, with one such group even distancing itself from CPI(M)’s statement. Other traditional Left groups appeared uncertain about their stance, and their statements provided superficial analyses of the situation, advocating for unprincipled pacifism and failing to grapple with the ideological and political dimensions of the crisis.
On the other hand, responses and analyses from two new Left groups helped exposed some of the current situation's problems and the fault lines in the theory and practice of the traditional Left. First, the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP) condemned India's aggression and called for immediate peace. HKP argued that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was exploiting the Pahalgam event to further his agenda and to distract from his failures in Kashmir. Subsequent statements from HKP's General Secretary clarified that they viewed India’s recent aggression as a manifestation of Western imperialism using India as a proxy against China in a new "Cold War." This position was deeply uncomfortable for the orthodox Marxist Left, which responded by accusing the HKP of capitulating to the Pakistani military's narrative and issued harsh criticisms of its analysis.
Setting aside the theoretical limitations of the traditional Left in Pakistan, an engaging response to HKP’s analysis came from another new Left group inspired by Western Marxism and Gramscian thought. This response, from Ayyaz Malick, a member of the new Left faction of the Awami Workers Party (AWP), defined India as a "sub-imperialist" power and a "regional hegemon," describing Hindutva as one of the most dangerous forms of fascism in the world. However, his primary concern focused on the war hysteria and patriotic chauvinism invoked by statements and analyses from the HKP. According to Mallick, based on the history of the Cold War and the "War on Terror," Pakistan had also been contending to become a sub-imperialist power. As a result, he contended that the HKP based its position and analyses on "geopolitics" rather than providing a concrete analysis of the situation. Mallick's position, which reflects the sentiments of the new Left faction of the AWP, simplifies the response to the situation to a call for a "popular program of national consciousness" aimed at creating a new "popular subject." This response exemplifies the Gramscian perspective held by many Western Marxism-inspired scholars in Pakistan, who are sometimes distant from the concrete politics of Third World countries.
However, the overall debate raises several important issues that delve into the painful memories of the Pakistani Left, which this article seeks to address. First, the article examines the historical reasons behind the traditional Left's pacifist stance towards India, the influence of the Indian Left and Indian nationalism on the traditional Left's view of the Indian state, the process of post-colonial state formation, and the deep divide between the Pro-Soviet and Pro-China factions of the communist movement on this issue. Following this analysis, it seeks to understand the emerging positions of the new Left and interrogates why a fissure exists in the new Left's understanding of the India-Pakistan conflict. This discussion allows us to identify the theoretical and practical limitations on both sides of the debate, stemming from an insufficient understanding of revolutionary politics and the theoretical ruptures within the Pakistani Left. Lastly, considering this historical context, the article highlights the emerging global, regional, and local politics in South Asia and encourages a revolutionary understanding of people's resistance and people's war in Pakistan and South Asia.
The Influence of the Indian Left and Indian Nationalism on the Pakistani Left
“The roots of the debate regarding the Pakistani Left’s perspective on Indian and Pakistani state formation extend at least as far back as the 1920s. ”
The roots of the debate regarding the Pakistani Left’s perspective on Indian and Pakistani state formation extend at least as far back as the 1920s. Among current contingents of the Left, the orthodox Marxist Left has never accepted Pakistan as a natural "nation" or country. This position originated with the pre-partition undivided Communist Party of India (CPI),which since the 1920s viewed the Congress as struggling for independence from British colonialism, representing the Indian "national bourgeoisie" and "a progressive force trying to keep India united." In contrast, the All-India Muslim League was considered by the CPI to be a regressive force attempting to divide India along communal lines. It is important to note, however, that many groups in the revolutionary movement at the time, such as the Ghadar Party and the Kirti Kisan Party, held distinct positions and indigenous understandings of Indian politics, which the revolutionary Maoists later further developed in light of these and other indigenous struggles.
When the Congress refused to support the CPI's position in 1942 of allying with the British government against German fascism, following the Soviet Union's line, the CPI, disappointed with the Congress, began supporting the demand for Pakistan, accepting India as comprising several nations. Utilizing Stalin's 1913 work on Marxism and the National Question, the CPI's Adhikari report for the first time posited the idea of India as consisting of various cultures and languages rather than as a cultural whole. This understanding supported the demand for Pakistan, a viewpoint also reflected in the writings of prominent communists at the time, such as Sajjad Zaheer and N. K. Krishnan.
This position persisted until 1946, when the CPI again opposed the demand for Pakistan, and following the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, declared Pakistan an unnatural country and its creation as reactionary. At the CPI's 1948 congress in Calcutta, Bhowani Sen presented the "Report on Pakistan," where the prevailing opinion was that the Indian union was progressive and that the creation of Pakistan constituted a regressive step. According to some Pakistani Left scholars, both the CPI and the Congress criticized Muslim elite politicians as the real culprits behind the partition of India. It is also noteworthy that the CPI's anti-Pakistan stance was supported by the Soviet Union, which viewed the creation of Pakistan as an attempt to establish a buffer state for Western imperialism's Cold War needs, with its analysis failing to consider the legitimate aspirations of the Muslims of the subcontinent, particularly those in Punjab and Bengal.
The newly formed Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) tailed the CPI’s position and, following the Pakistani state's 1953 ban on the CPP, merged all centrifugal ethno-nationalist forces into the National Awami Party (NAP), a "big tent"progressive party formed in 1957 that directed all its energies against the military establishment. The CPP and ethno-nationalist elites within the NAP also tailed the CPI's line in India of a "National Democratic Revolution" as their political program, eventually merging with the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in the 1980s and arriving at their final ideological destination of NGOs and human rights by the 1990s and 2000s.
“It is impossible to deny that the nation-building projects of both India and Pakistan...were characterized by internal colonization and the forcible merging of cultures, ethnicities, and even historic nations into a single nation-state.”
To us, it is impossible to deny that the nation-building projects of both India and Pakistan, like many newly independent Third World countries, were characterized by internal colonization and the forcible merging of cultures, ethnicities, and even historic nations into a single nation-state. However, the CPP and NAP position faced challenges in the mid-1960s when the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the 1966 Tashkent declaration, the Sino-Soviet split, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, and the failure of the Pakistani nation-building project led to the emergence of Maoist groups in Pakistan, who viewed themselves as successors to the indigenous struggles of the masses in the subcontinent. They analyzed Pakistan's independence differently than the CPI, CPI(M), and the elite contingent of the CPP.
The Maoist Left: Lost at the Crossroads of China-Pakistan Relations
Maoist groups in Pakistan emerged from the pro-China faction within the CPP, operating under the larger NAP umbrella during the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. The perspective they developed sought to uncover the material roots of the partition of India and Pakistan and the evolving politics of the Pakistani "masses" within the context of the underlying class and caste contradictions faced by the majority of Muslim masses in Punjab, East Bengal, and Sindh. These groups primarily comprised small peasants, tenants, landless individuals, and scheduled caste members who faced exploitation from British colonialism as well as from land-owning and money-lending Hindu upper castes, who were a minority in these regions.
Some theorists also went as far as identifying differences between the civilizations that developed around the Indus River and those around the Ganges River, suggesting they formed two distinct cultural and economic histories such that the entire subcontinent could not be lumped together as a single "Indian Nation." For many in this movement, including Ishaque Muhammad, one of the founders of the PMKP—the largest Maoist party in Pakistan that led the armed resistance of peasants in Hashtnagar during the late 1960s and early 1970s—this alternative perspective provided an opportunity to establish a class and caste basis for a unified mass struggle at both national and regional levels, advocating for a People’s Democratic Revolution, led by a worker-peasant alliance, as opposed to the traditional Left’s idea of a National Democratic Revolution. Similarly, this emerging Maoist viewpoint framed the independence of Kashmir and Bangladesh as issues of national liberation and people's resistance, critiquing the involvement of both the Indian and Pakistani states as detrimental to their liberation movements.
Major Ishaque Muhammad speaking at an MKP rally
While these Maoist groups rightly identified Indian expansionism, the internal colonization by the Indian and Pakistani states, and the semi-colonial, semi-feudal, and comprador nature of the Pakistani state necessitating a militant agrarian revolution capturing power from the rural and national peripheries towards the centre, some were unable to voice loud opposition to the Pakistani state's actions against oppressed nations, especially in what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This hesitance was influenced by Chinese support for Pakistan; however, notable exceptions existed, such as a faction of the former Professor’s Group and the majority faction of the PMKP. Over time, due to internal rifts within the Maoist movement, ideological errors, and exceptional external circumstances, the Maoist movement in Pakistan weakened. As the Left's energies during General Zia’s Martial Law were diverted into the Pakistan People's Party-led MRD—except for the PMKP, which largely refused to join the alliance, aside from a small splinter group—the traditional Left in Pakistan narrowed its analysis to focus on the need for liberal democracy and secular politics.
“After the fall of the Soviet Union, much of the traditional Left sought refuge in the burgeoning NGOs and human rights discourse of the 1990s.”
After the fall of the Soviet Union, much of the traditional Left sought refuge in the burgeoning NGOs and human rights discourse of the 1990s. Their psychological response to the Left's defeat by religious politics and the military was so deep that many in the traditional Left went on to provide intellectual justifications for the US attack on Afghanistan and the war on terror following 9/11. This support extended to tacit backing for military dictator General Pervez Musharraf, who was portrayed as a bulwark against religious fundamentalism and terrorism—an issue many traditional Left intellectuals deemed the primary contradiction facing the emancipation of the Pakistani people. This moment also marked the first significant exposure of the Pro-Soviet Left's historical and ideological fault lines, which had become the mainstream perspective in the Pakistani Left after the weakening of the Maoist movement.
The Quest for Working Class Politics by the New Left
Beginning in the 2000s and continuing into the 2010s, new Western-educated academic activists returned to Pakistan, intervening in the theory and practice of the traditional Left. Theoretically, they brought interventions from Western intellectuals such as Antonio Gramsci, David Harvey and Noam Chomsky, and in practice, they brought identity-based social movement-ism into traditional Left parties, merging with existing NGO-tic inclinations within them. Many of these activists also drew inspiration from rising nationalist movements like the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and other ethno-nationalist struggles, albeit in a somewhat incoherent manner.
“new Left groups adopted the politics of social movements and piecemeal struggles...often lacking deep organization among the masses.”
In this context, new Left groups adopted the politics of social movements and piecemeal struggles, manifesting in urban demonstrations, student marches, and sporadic interventions in working-class uprisings, often lacking deep organization among the masses. In practice, this resulted in piecemeal mobilizations around existing movements instead of attempts to organize an ideologically coherent political party or working class organizations aimed at seizing political and social power. For instance, groups like the HKP began organizing in working-class neighbourhoods in Lahore but ultimately diverted their momentum and resources toward a failed electoral bid. Following the HKP’s initial political engagement with ethno-nationalist movements, it now appears to embrace mainstream electoral politics, essentially sidelining ongoing people's struggles in favour of "mega politics." On international issues, the HKP's analysis has shifted toward debates on geopolitics and international relations, as noted by Mallick. Similarly, the AWP’s new Left faction started working in the slums (katchi abadis) of Islamabad but lost its momentum amid failed election bids. Although some individuals in this faction have seriously engaged with the toiling classes, including in the struggle of farmers at Okara military farms, their efforts have been diluted by the fragmented nature of social movement-ism and the influence of powerful, resourceful foreign-funded NGOs, which have undermined these movements' militant spirit.
Given the decline of these new Left projects into social movement-ism and NGO work, and the fact that the ongoing nationalist and other people's struggles they sympathize with are rooted in independent constituencies where the new Left holds no real stake, the primary focus of such new Left groups has become one of "consciousness-raising"—aiming to instil revolutionary consciousness in otherwise "doped" and "docile" people on the ground.
The historical and ideological depth of analyses within these new Left groups is largely limited to existing historical accounts from the orthodox Marxist Left or nationalists, which see the military establishment and the religious fundamentalism it backs as the central contradiction facing the Pakistani masses. Aside from the foreign Marxist ideological frameworks, both new Left groups face a central dilemma: a lack of ideological understanding of the history of the traditional Left and a failure to recognize the divergent theoretical positions rooted in the struggles of the revolutionary movement.
Under the influence of the orthodox Marxist Left, Left historiography in Pakistan has been shaped by academics implicitly adopting a pro-Soviet perspective, drawing from the old histories written by members of the CPP and PWA, which, as mentioned above, were significantly influenced by the Indian Left and Congress-led Indian nationalism. Unfamiliar with the historical ideological divisions and the varied practices within the traditional Left, and not rooted in the indigenous struggles of the masses in Pakistan, the new Left groups and their associated academics have joined this historiographical project, introducing new theoretical insights from the Western academy while applying them to the traditional Left's "common sense" understanding of Pakistan's history and its revolutionary movements. Consequently, academics from these new Left groups often find themselves adopting inconsistent political positions, even as they raise important questions regarding theory and practice in the context of emerging regional and global politics.
Another problem with the existing project of Left historiography is its conscious or unconscious failure to mention, document, and analyze indigenous militant movements among the peasantry, workers, and marginalized castes across Pakistan, which corresponded with the revolutionary Maoist movement in the country. For example, an important voice missing in recent analyses by the Pakistani Left on the India-Pakistan conflict has been that of the people's resistance in Kashmir. The Kashmir issue is not merely a dispute between India, Pakistan, and China; it cannot be understood solely in terms of one country acting as an aggressor against another and terrorism as the core of the problem, as historically viewed by the CPI, CPI(M), and their proxy parties in Pakistan and related historiography, all of which has deliberately neglected to robustly support the right to self-determination for Kashmiris and the militant methods employed by their national liberation movement.
We believe that the starting point of the issue was a legitimate people's rebellion against the Dogra rulers of Kashmir. Despite attempts by parts of the Left to organize people's militias in resistance to Dogra rule and the Indian effort to annex Kashmir, both the Pakistani and Indian state interventions acted to crush the people's movement. For many in the communist movement at the time, the actions of the Pakistani and Indian states in Kashmir and the CPI and CPP's lack of support for the people's rebellion mirrored the historic betrayal by the CPI of the people's resistance in Telangana, which was brutally suppressed by the Indian state with the acquiescence of CPI leadership.
Military formation of the people’s resistance in Telangana, 1948. Image: Wikipedia
In a similar vein, both the Pakistani and Indian mainstream Left historiography surrounding the independence of Bangladesh, compiled by pro-Soviet historians, is predominantly viewed through the lens of atrocities committed by the Pakistani military and India's intervention to assist Bangladesh's independence. In comparison, an alternate history shows significant roots of people's war against imperialism and the Indian, Pakistani, and Bengali ruling classes. That India, Pakistan and Bangladesh's first government all acted to brutally suppress this movement remains a dark and unresolved chapter in the memories of the Bangladeshi, Indian, and Pakistani Lefts.
Fortunately, recent attempts in Pakistani Left history have sought to highlight the distinct theory and practice of the Pakistani Left associated with Maoist thinking, inspired by the Hashtnagar and Naxalbari movements in Pakistan and India. While this marks just the beginning of academic work revisiting the revolutionary movement and grappling with its many internal and external contradictions, it is clear that the first stage of Left historiography in Pakistan, based purely on archives, is over.
The new phase of Left historiography in Pakistan will require a re-reading of the archives and a deep understanding of ideological divisions and historical legacies. Above all, both traditional Left and new Left academics must seriously engage with "people's histories" from within the movements they led to address the current challenges of revolutionary theory. A lack of familiarity with these divergent ideological currents, histories, and their concrete material causes will continue to hinder the Left's ability to appreciate and engage with current revolutionary struggles amid changing local, regional, and global politics.
Emerging Global, Regional, and Local Politics and Peoples’ Resistance in South Asia
The next question for us is to determine how changes in local, regional, and global politics, alongside the historical and ideological memory of the Pakistani Left, hinder the embrace of these changes, particularly regarding the India-Pakistan conflict, engagement with genuine revolutionary struggles in South Asia, and the development of a new revolutionary strategy in the region.
Pakistan has become increasingly dependent on the United States, IMF, World Bank, China, and Arab monarchies, making it vulnerable to external pressures. Nonetheless, this does not alter the perspective on the authoritarian nature of the Pakistani state, which remains a semi-colonial, semi-feudal, and comprador state. Its ruling class continues to be subservient to imperialism, while the military serves as the internal bastion of power for its hegemonic agenda, historically aligned with US imperialism but gradually drifting towards China. Its socio-economic structure continues to rest upon the foundations of feudalism, and its bourgeoisie continues to be a comprador class, together resulting in a structure of bureaucratic capitalism. However, we must also seriously consider three emerging changes in the region and adapt our strategies and tactics accordingly, with a deep understanding of the development of Left theory and practice.
The first change in regional politics is the rise of China as a social-imperialist and expansionist power. Strangely, this aspect is largely absent from analyses of the recent India-Pakistan conflict, except in noting the assistance and use of Chinese technology, which allowed Pakistan to respond effectively to the Indian attack. Unfortunately, the traditional Left in Pakistan, particularly the old proponents of Mao Zedong Thought, remain adamant about not revising their views on China. Even the orthodox Marxist Left, which has been focused on global power politics since Soviet times, is eager to support China. Among the new Left groups, the HKP has adopted popular anti-India and pro-China positions in what it terms the "new Cold War," partly due to its ambitions to enter mainstream national politics in Pakistan as a "big-tent"progressive and social democratic party. In contrast, the new Left faction of AWP appears more skeptical of China, likely due to its connections with nationalist movements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and elsewhere, but it has failed to provide a solid analysis of the nature of the Chinese state or its contradictory relationship with revolutionary movements in the region.
First, using the term “new Cold War” to describe the current China-US anti-imperialist rivalry is misleading because the Cold War historically involved two ideological blocs and systems at a specific juncture. While we can question whether China is a socialist or a social-imperialist/expansionist-capitalist country, the negative role of China in the Nepali revolutionary movement and its lack of support for other revolutionary movements in the region is a documented reality.
“The contradiction between the Pakistani masses and China’s domestic and regional ambitions is becoming sharper.”
It is also important to note that nationalist movements in Pakistan oppose the exploitation of their resources by China and view the policies of the Pakistani state as an extension of this exploitation. Recently, as the Baloch struggle for national liberation has intensified, adopting more militant methods and facing challenging circumstances, traditional Left groups have begun to turn their backs on and refute the inclusion of the national question in Marxism. Even new Left groups have issued "nationally palatable" positions, while Mao Zedong Thought groups have gone so far as to align with the Pakistani state narrative, remaining entirely uncritical of the long history of subjugation, ethnic cleansing, and mass atrocities currently being perpetrated by the Pakistani state in Balochistan. Although the slowdown of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor in recent years has shifted the conversation to the background, the contradiction between the Pakistani masses and China's domestic and regional ambitions is becoming sharper.
Secondly, the most challenging position for the Left in Pakistan and nationalists is to change their views towards India. The rise of India as a Brahmanical Hindutva fascist state, bullying other countries in South Asia and using its military might internally against Kashmiris, Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, farmers, and other marginalized communities poses a danger not only to regional peace and security but also to all revolutionary movements in the region. The Indian state is not only engaging in external aggression and pursuing a heavy-handed foreign policy towards Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and others, but also conducting an internal colonization project on behalf of Western and domestic big bourgeoisie and mining interests. It is violently and brutally attempting to crush all resistance to resource exploitation, deforestation, and the oppression of indigenous Adivasi communities. This has also led to mass repression against the ongoing People's War in India, led by the CPI (Maoist), which, unlike Maoist factions within the Pakistani Left, has continued the legacy of Naxalbari and sustained its struggle across several regions in India. Currently, the Indian state has launched the violent and illegal Operation Kagar and is implementing a brutal onslaught of draconian laws, arrests, and other unlawful means to repress the CPI (Maoist) and others fighting for the liberation of Dalits, Adivasis, and the Indian masses.
Lastly, India has developed a lethal nexus in a third significant change in the region: the role of Israel as a sub-imperialist power in the Gulf. Here again, the instinctive reactions of the traditional Left and the new Left against any movement using the name of Islam, whether it be Hamas or organizations in Kashmir, significantly hinder the development of revolutionary theory and practice. Therefore, while condemning the brutal atrocities of the Pakistani state, the Pakistani Left should seriously reconsider and reanalyze its approach towards India, Israel, and Chinese expansionism and social-imperialist ambitions in the region. To do this, it must carefully examine the uneven development of each contradiction and the complexities within the web of other contradictions.
Peoples’ Resistance and Peoples’ War in South Asia
“A Left practice reduced either to social movements and identity-based organizing without deep integration with the masses, or to “big-tent politics,” limited to a consciousness-raising Gramscian “war of position,” are two sides of the same coin. ”
While keeping an eye on inter-elite contradictions, the primary focus of Left analysis should be the contradiction of the masses of South Asia with imperialism, feudalism, and comprador capitalism—specifically concerning peoples' resistance and war in the region. The Left must side with peoples' struggles in their contradiction against imperialism and their oppressive ruling classes, acknowledging that these contradictions exist at different levels of development, are complex, and are marked by over-determinations in political outcomes. Given Pakistan’s semi-colonial and semi-feudal character, and the complexity of emerging contradictions amid rising Indian and Chinese expansionism in the region, a Left practice reduced either to social movements and identity-based organizing without deep integration with the masses, or to “big-tent politics,” limited to a consciousness-raising Gramscian “war of position,” are two sides of the same coin. This practice strategically avoids the question of developing a revolutionary party capable of organizing militant institutions of the working-class to seize and exercise political power instead of relying on electoralism to achieve influence, if any, within the existing system.
Similarly, despite the historical and psychological hang-ups of the Pakistani Left regarding religious extremism, we cannot reject people's movements based on the genuine contradictions faced by the masses using religious idioms. Even when the Left supports such struggles, it should avoid falling into logical fallacies. For instance, supporting the national liberation struggle of Kashmir should not automatically mean supporting the Pakistani state, nor should siding with the Baloch national liberation struggle be construed as siding with India simply because India is accused of supporting the Baloch insurgency.
One thing is certain: our ruling classes, in an increasingly non-hegemonic world marked by rising inter-imperialist rivalries, are incapable of defending their people. Instead, they are entering into a contradictory unity to secure their share of the exploitation of their populations, much like the ruling classes of India or China. Therefore, while the contradictions between imperialist powers, as manifested in the India-Pakistan war, are important, they cannot be analyzed without concrete organizing on the ground and engagement with all waves of people's resistance.
Thus, the Pakistani Left's response should not be to side with the semi-colonial, semi-feudal, and comprador Pakistani state, even if it is the target of another country's regional aggression. Such a response would continue to serve imperial interests within the ongoing inter-imperialist rivalry, especially in the absence of a genuine change in the Pakistani state’s class composition. Instead, our response should be to align with the masses of Pakistan in waging a genuine anti-imperialist struggle against Western imperialism, Indian aggression, and Chinese expansionism and social imperialism. We should not hesitate to stand against the expansionist designs of the Brahmanical Hindutva fascist Indian state, regardless of whether it irritates the traditional Left, new Left groups, or their liberal constituencies. Similarly, our opposition to Indian aggression should not be limited to the BJP-Modi government but should extend to the Brahmanical Hindutva fascist nature of the Indian state, which has been supported by the so-called "secular and liberal" Congress party and its electoral Left allies. This would require us to stand in genuine solidarity with the militant struggles of Adivasis, Dalits, and Kashmiris within India, as well as the regional victims of its expansionism, including the Nepalese, Bengali, and Sri Lankan peoples, against the Brahmanical Hindutva fascist state, its imperialist backers, and the ruling classes throughout the region.
“Calls for an abstract and unprincipled peace are also not a proper response to the current crisis”
As such, calls for an abstract and unprincipled peace are also not a proper response to the current crisis. We should support the ongoing and emerging revolutionary militant people's movements in the region against militarization and imperialist designs and advocate for the unity of all revolutionary forces towards genuine people's resistance led by revolutionary worker-peasant forces against imperialism, feudalism, comprador capitalism, reactionary forces, revisionism, and all forms of exploitation. Only through the development of these movements and the building of principled revolutionary alliances can we envision a truly emancipatory future for our region.
Muhammad Umar Ali is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law (SAHSOL), Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Syed Azeem is an Associate Professor at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law (SAHSOL), Lahore University of Management Sciences.