History, Ideas, Visions

Marxists have long understood and emphasized the relevance of material infrastructure as constituting the basis of economic and social formations. Marx himself provided the basis for debates in the Indian Marxist tradition by suggesting that railways would be the ‘forerunner of modern industry’ (Marx 1978). The inherently linear, modernization-driven narrative underlying infrastructure’s conceptual foundations is perhaps best illustrated in the influential development discourses that emerged in the 1950s. This mode of thought about infrastructure was intimately caught up with new ideas concerning the shape and trajectory of economic development and the advancement of industrialization in so-called developing countries. With the ‘underdevelopment’ of Asia, Africa and Latin America as the major unresolved economic problem looming on the mid-20th century horizon, a new field of development economics emerged. Its ideas and theories percolated into the realm of industrial and infrastructural policy making in Pakistan. While there is no linear relationship between ideas and policy outcomes, in this specific historical conjuncture of the Pakistani state the ideas did have important bearing on official policy and planning. In Pakistan, as elsewhere in the erstwhile third world, the ideas of development economics were palpable to local planners and military rulers by giving saliency to their visions. Development economics enabled independent states, such as Pakistan, to tie infrastructure policies with a mode of rule while promising rapid material progress.