There is a growing trend amongst the Pakistani intelligentsia to outrightly dismiss liberalism and those who identify as liberals. This antagonism stems from a mix of ideological and cultural sources: resentment toward European colonialism and American imperialism, Marxist convictions, and a kind of rural nostalgia that idealizes traditional ways of life. While not without merit, these critiques often obfuscate the internal tensions, historical trajectories, and diverse strands within liberalism. I will critically engage with these three prominent strands of anti-liberal sentiment in Pakistan and argue that a wholesale rejection of liberalism obscures, rather than clarifies, the moral and political challenges of our time. A key moment in Pakistan’s liberal-bashing discourse came on January 20, 2011, when a leading journalist with a popular prime-time show popularised the oxymoronic term “liberal fascist” in a column for Daily Jang. Without offering a coherent definition and reflecting epistemological poverty, he simply listed positions, including support for U.S. drone strikes, opposition to Islamic articles in the Constitution, endorsement of General Musharraf, and backing of President Zardari, as indicative of a liberal menace. Around the same time, Imran Khan labelled liberals as “khooni liberals” (bloody liberals) and “scum of the earth” in a January 18, 2012, interview with The Express Tribune. Ironically, both men shared ambiguous positions on military rule and selective outrage on constitutional matters. These attacks revealed their ideological inconsistencies, and fate decreed that their opportunism was exposed, especially after the sickening APS attack on 16th December 2014.

Liberalism, of course, is an essentially contested term. It is neither static nor singular. Etymologically derived from the Latin “liber,” meaning “free man,” liberals historically opposed monarchy and feudalism, championing liberty, constitutionalism, and political representation. From the English Civil War and the American Revolution to the French Revolution, liberals advocated individual rights, the rule of law, and representative government. Many early liberals were part of the elite, some even slave owners, but their political ideals questioned inherited privilege and arbitrary rule. Over time, liberalism diversified. Classical liberals like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill promoted laissez-faire economics and limited government. But by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in response to industrial exploitation and social inequality, modern liberals began supporting state intervention to ensure public education, healthcare, and labour protections. In Britain, the Fabian Society inspired reforms like public ownership of essential services, progressive taxation and equality of opportunity, policies that influenced postcolonial leaders across the Global South. Liberal reformism often succeeded where revolutionary Marxism did not: through constitutional means rather than violent upheaval, liberal democracies secured universal suffrage, labour laws, and welfare systems. The influence of Marxist ideas on modern liberals cannot be underestimated. This evolution continued into a third phase, i.e. neoliberalism. Emerging in the 1980s under leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, neoliberalism championed free markets, deregulation, and reduced state welfare. Philosophically grounded in the theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, it sought to dismantle Keynesian consensus and roll back the welfare state. Neo-liberalism exacerbated inequality, commodified public goods, and eroded social safety nets. Today, many self-identified conservatives embrace neoliberal economics while rejecting liberal cultural values, advocating instead for authoritarian state control over gender roles, education, and media. Economic liberalisation coupled with political repression has created what scholars call “authoritarian neoliberalism.”

Liberalism has always contained internal contradictions, especially in its relationship with empire. European powers used the liberal rhetoric of civilising missions, the rule of law, and human rights to justify colonial violence and economic exploitation. The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), one of the most radical democratic uprisings of its time, remains marginalised in mainstream liberal historiography, despite its philosophical alignment with Enlightenment values. British liberalism presided over the Bengal Famine of 1943 and participated in the arbitrary partition of Africa along lines of longitude and latitude. These examples reveal liberalism’s hypocrisy: it often excluded colonised peoples from its promises of liberty and equality. De-colonial thinkers are right to critique these omissions. However, their tendency to see colonialism as the origin of all modern oppression can obscure pre-colonial systems of domination, such as caste, patriarchy, and slavery. It can also downplay the indigenous traditions of dissent, pluralism, and reason that predated European arrival and, in some cases, overlapped with liberal ideals. The binary framing of coloniser versus colonised, or liberal versus indigenous, often flattens complex histories and prevents meaningful dialogue.

Another reason for hostility toward liberalism in Pakistan is resentment of American imperialism. The United States, particularly after the Cold War, has pursued a foreign policy marked by military invasions, regime change, and support for authoritarian allies, all in the name of spreading democracy and human rights. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Chile and Egypt, the gap between America’s liberal rhetoric and its imperial practices has been vast. It is therefore tempting to conflate liberalism with U.S. foreign policy. But doing so confuses liberal ideals, such as human rights, civil liberties, and democratic governance, with the instrumental use of those ideals to justify domination. The American state has routinely betrayed the very principles it claims to champion. Criticising that hypocrisy is necessary but discarding liberal values because of it is intellectually lazy and politically dangerous. Such conflation enables authoritarian populists and religious hardliners in Pakistan to dismiss liberalism and modernisation wholesale. They exploit public anger against the West to reject liberal commitments to pluralism, minority rights, freedom of speech, and gender equality. In doing so, they substitute one form of domination for another. By invoking tradition, authenticity, or religious piety, they seek to silence dissent and consolidate power.

A related cultural critique comes from a nostalgic idealisation of rural life and patriarchal values. Urban liberalism is framed as alien, immoral, and Westernised. This romanticism, however, is deeply hypocritical. Many who denounce liberalism publicly benefit privately from liberal freedoms: sending children to Western universities, enjoying consumer luxuries, or relying on protections afforded by liberal constitutionalism. They oppose feminism while asserting individual choice; they reject secularism but demand due process and freedom of expression when convenient. This performative conservatism is more about preserving patriarchal and generational power than upholding moral values.

These critiques, despite their variety, flatten liberalism into a strawman. Yes, liberalism has been complicit in empire, capitalism, and patriarchy, but to dismiss it wholesale is intellectually lazy. Liberalism is one of the few political traditions that admits its failures and evolves through legal reform, moral critique, and public reasoning. In Pakistan, where authoritarianism is rampant, minorities are scapegoated, and civic space is vanishing, liberal values such as civil liberties, dissent, gender justice, and pluralism are not bourgeois luxuries. They are lifelines. To reject liberalism because America betrayed its own principles is to confuse hypocrisy with ideology. We must stop letting reactionaries dictate the terms of debate. The challenge is not to abandon liberalism but to radicalise it, ground it in our own histories, and reclaim its emancipatory core. Liberalism offers no utopia, but it remains a site of struggle. Its contradictions, when confronted critically, can be turned into weapons of resistance and tools for building a counter-hegemonic order.

The writer is a faculty member at the Department of Political Science at Forman Christian College University.

Note: This article first appeared in The Nation on August 08, 2025.