Contemporary Pakistan has transformed into a psychological battlefield where the conventional weaponry of tanks and artillery has been superseded by the volatile power of "narratives". In this digital era, the success of a political entity is no longer gauged by its governance, policy frameworks, or tangible performance. Instead, it is measured by its ability to embed a potent, hypnotic, and often polarizing story into the minds of the masses. This shift represents a move away from substantive democracy toward a "perception democracy", where the loudest voice, rather than the most competent one, commands the most loyalty. As the boundary between fact and fiction dissolves, the state finds itself in the throes of an epistemological crisis that threatens the very fabric of national unity.
This ideological tug-of-war is not a local phenomenon but a calculated application of mass psychology. To understand this, one must revisit Edward Bernays’ seminal work, Propaganda, which illustrates how the public mind is molded by "invisible governors" to serve specific interests. Bernays famously argued that those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country. In Pakistan, this narrative-building has evolved into a sophisticated, multi-billion rupee industry. Every political faction has established formidable social media cells whose primary objective is to engage in a binary restructuring of reality: deifying their leaders as messianic figures while demonizing their opponents as absolute evils.
This industry relies heavily on what Noam Chomsky articulated in Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky’s propaganda model explains how the media and now social media acts as a filter to marginalize dissent and create a consensus that serves elite interests. When a specific perspective is repeated incessantly across every digital touchpoint, it eventually integrates into the public consciousness as an objective truth. In Pakistan, we see this through the "echo chamber" effect, where algorithms ensure that citizens are only exposed to information that reinforces their existing prejudices, effectively insulating them from any form of rational contradiction.
The weaponization of language plays a central role in this domestic conflict. Jason Stanley, in How Propaganda Works, explains how specific terms are used to dismantle democratic discourse by stripping words of their actual meaning and replacing them with emotional triggers. We see this daily in our local political lexicon. Terms like Chor (thief), Ghadar (traitor), Haqeeqi Azadi (true freedom), and Vote ko Izzat do (respect the vote) are no longer mere slogans; they are "political arrows" designed to deepen societal fault lines. When such charged labels are used to exclude rather than include, the possibility of national cohesion evaporates, replaced by a toxic environment where dialogue is viewed as a betrayal of the cause.
This linguistic manipulation is a precursor to the rise of an unyielding cult of personality. Political and religious leaders are shielded by a mystical aura created by their propaganda machines, ensuring that every blunder is rebranded as a masterstroke and every ethical compromise is hailed as political expediency. Jacques Ellul argued in his critique of propaganda that its goal is not merely to change opinions but to provoke such an intense emotional response that the individual ceases to function rationally. Consequently, when a leader hurls an unsubstantiated accusation, the followers bypass the stage of verification. Investigation is traded for blind indignation, and the lie becomes a digital reality before the truth can even find its footing.
In modern Pakistan, the "crisis of truth" has evolved from the simple suppression of information to the strategic weaponization of noise. Following Peter Pomerantsev’s thesis in This Is Not Propaganda, the goal is no longer to sell a specific lie, but to dismantle the very concept of objective reality. By flooding the digital landscape with a deluge of alternative facts and contradictory data on everything from the economy to the law political actors employ volume as a censorship mechanism. In this environment, the truth isn't hidden; it is simply rendered unfindable beneath a sea of engineered confusion. In Pakistan, the boundary between reality and political performance has effectively vanished, replaced by a state of cognitive paralysis. Managed by Political Influencers and partisan troll farms, our digital discourse has shifted from objective debate to identity signaling. In this environment, the authenticity of a leaked audio or deep fake video is secondary to its utility; the public no longer asks, "Is this true?" but rather, Does this serve my side? This transition from evidence-based reasoning to blind tribal loyalty unmoors the democratic process, turning facts into a matter of personal preference rather than shared reality.
The rapid advancement of information warfare spread via WhatsApp and Tik Tok has far outpaced the public’s digital literacy. We have entered an era of hallucinatory politics, where deep fakes and manipulated snippets keep the citizenry trapped in a cycle of permanent outrage over events that never occurred. This reactive loop serves as a strategic distraction, effectively burying critical discussions on inflation, governance, and judicial reform under a mountain of manufactured noise. When voters are occupied with digital phantoms, the real-world failures of the state go unaddressed.
The post-truth era has dismantled national consensus, trapping citizens in algorithmic silos where tribal loyalty supersedes objective reality. This erosion of truth destabilizes the state’s core pillars the judiciary, administration, and the press by replacing logic with a vacuum that invites chaos. To survive, Pakistanis must break the spell of manufactured propaganda by subjecting every narrative to a rigorous litmus test: does it serve the nation’s progress or a leader's ego? Reclaiming our common ground requires prioritizing digital literacy and the permanent survival of the state over the fleeting shadows of political trends. If we fail to choose the voice of reason over the "noise of the cell", we risk the collapse of our social foundation.
