Pakistan is a mock creation as today it is battling one crisis after another. Most of these problems are linked with the civil-military imbalance and our warped national security paradigm. One of the biggest threats to our nation is religious extremism. The partition of the Indian subcontinent took place for many reasons but from the day Pakistan came into being, the religion phenomena has been used as if it was the raison d’être for our country’s existence. The military and the ruling elite have used religion to further their interests. The tragedy of Pakistan is that our political spectrum is heavily tilted towards the right. Left politics is sadly missing in past and present as well. The question here arises is that does the Pakistani left actually exist? Some say no and some say yes. The ones who says no are those who tend to belong to the Pakistani diaspora, disillusioned by the decline of the left globally. But others say that it exists but is fragmented and disunited. History reminds us that the left in Pakistan collapsed 10 years before the worldwide collapse of socialism. One certainly agrees that the collapse of the left in Pakistan at least, in an organised, intellectually coherent sense had nothing to do with either the Afghan ‘jihad’ or Soviet failure, but predated both these epochal events. Nor, it should also be noted, can the reactionary darkness of General Ziaul Haq’s oppressive regime be implicated in the demise of the already auto-castrated Pakistani left. Shiekh Kalb-e-Ali, a prominent left wing worker, believes that “Left in Pakistan is alive and active. True, as a national force, it is weak. Unity, which would help achieve a national presence, is still elusive, although some mergers have occurred. But the left is Pakistan has been remarkably successful in the cultural sphere. It has documented and presented the life of the workers and peasants and brought them to centre stage in national affairs. More recently, it has been working with significant movements of workers and peasants in what are locally known as ‘livelihood struggles’ to bring concrete changes to the lives of the working class. Aftab Anjum says,”If leftists in Pakistan want to revive the Left movement, then they first have to explain to the masses what socialism stands for. They also have to explain the failures of socialism and for this they have to have a programme of broad parameters. They must do it in the Pakistani context. In the Pakistani context, the leftists will first have to understand the dynamics of feudalism, quasi-capitalism, imperialistic interests, religio-political and socio-cultural factors. All these have to be analysed first and then a foundation built on it. We must not forget that society and the world are not static, and the pace of change has accelerated. Economics and politics of the world are now inter-linked. Unless the leftists in Pakistan understand the dynamics of change themselves, they cannot present an advanced theory. And without an advanced theory, no movement can be effective. The merger of three left parties that recently occurred I believe many mergers in past has been done but of no use. These leftists just sit in cosy rooms, indulge in table talks and nothing is done for the betterment of people. They do not know the realities at the grassroots level and how to tackle them. I would say left is no more left in Pakistan and if it does then it is all funded. To prevent Pakistan’s headlong fall into an abyss, changes are needed at the grassroots level through a revolutionary movement. This is the responsibility of the left in Pakistan. The left must muster up its resources, organise itself, do a fresh analysis of what needs to be done and get ready to pick up the pieces again and rebuild a better country.” When Pakistan came into being, the left faced the worst possible adversity due to its ideals and beliefs, which were in stark contrast with that of the feudal lords, Islamists and the ruling elite (military, bureaucracy and the political class). The leftists were perceived as a grave threat to the overall subservient-to-imperialism culture prevalent in the country, especially in Punjab. It led to the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) being officially banned in 1954. Though the ban on the CPP was a huge setback for the left movement in Pakistan, the leftists continued to make intellectual, literary, cultural and social contributions to our society. Advocate Sarmad Ali, a young legal expert who teaches law, says, “Left in Pakistan collapsed due to a number of reasons, including internal squabbles, but now it must re-emerge and save the country from further deterioration into a dark abyss of extremism and international isolation. The Left is the one force or ideology that can consistently be expected to stand up against the military establishment unlike the mainstream political forces that have to reluctantly compromise with the establishment to come to power. If we want to roll back General Ziaul Haq’s legacy and address the national question, an organised Left movement is our only chance. The Left will fight for the rights of women and minorities turn Pakistan into a progressive society and will consequently end the dominance of the military establishment. But the fact is Left in Pakistan is funded by donors. “In Pakistan, the Left’s politics will take time to reach out to the people because even conventional democratic politics is not yet clearly established. There are some so-called Left parties but I think they do not even know the proper meaning of the term. They just hold discussions and do not work in field. So, they can’t be called Leftists. Today’s NGOs have also damaged the work of the Left. I think the Left will take some time to be effective.” In my opinion the Pakistani left has always been faced by a dilemma. I know many leftists who branded themselves as atheists and now they are tableeghis. The leftist have never been leftist in the true sense of the word, and they pretend to be God fearing during the last years of their lives. Moreover, the majority of our population, which is rural, is living at the mercy of feudals and dependent upon them for their existence and so the left was left to be discussed at the parties of the super-rich and the poor has nothing to do with it. Left in Pakistan is funded, based and interlinked with NGO’s as they are economically taking help from them. The writer is a freelance contributor and Lahore-based social activist and he can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com