THE commotion generated by an American congressperson’s tabling of a resolution on Balochistan in the House of Representatives was always going to subside, and subsided it has.

The media and reactionary political forces have moved quickly along to the latest American/Indian ‘conspiracy’ to defang Pakistan — the ‘campaign’ against Kashmir liberator extraordinaire, Hafiz Saeed.

In short, some sense of normalcy has been restored. All of the state’s permanent institutions appear to be doing their bit to reassert the primacy of ‘national security’ and the indivisibility of the Muslim ‘nation’. Cue the Supreme Court’s ongoing hearing in Quetta on missing persons in which the only real questions being asked of the intelligence agencies have to do with their potential roles in ‘restoring peace in the province’.

In related vein, Younis Habib’s sordid tales of the intelligence agencies’ mangling of the political process have not precipitated nearly as much serious debate about the overbearing role of the state security apparatus in this country as was initially hoped.

Indeed, like every sensational news item before it, Mehrangate too has quickly disappeared from the media spotlight.

Those who have sacrificed much for the establishment of a political process unfettered by our holy guardians should not be surprised. It was, after all, asking a bit too much of our self-anointed patriots to sit idly by while their hallowed reputations took a beating. Something has to give when too many people break with deeply entrenched taboos.

Yet there is a sense that the cat is now out of the bag and it will be difficult to force it back in.

Among other things it is no longer possible for state institutions to suppress dissent as blatantly as happened in the past (although this might just be a case of when the powers-that-be become more sophisticated in their methods rather than if).

Perhaps more importantly, and more hopefully, Pakistani society has changed, and will continue to do so.

Pakistan is not the only country in which the state’s ideological apparatus has incessantly championed a narrative that accords its security apparatus — and its intelligence agencies in particular — unparalleled and unaccountable powers.

While intelligence agencies do exercise these powers, arguably more important than what these agencies actually do is the myths generated and propagated about them.

In this country it is the Punjabi heartland that has been both home to, and the fiercest defender of, these myths. Fear and awe of the military in general, and intelligence agencies in particular, are relatively widespread.

In contrast, a wide cross-section of society in Sindh and Balochistan has historically evinced far less of a submissive posture vis-à-vis the security apparatus.

I would suggest that a majority of the younger generation in the Pakhtun areas of Pakistan has also become far more discerning in its attitudes towards the military and intelligence agencies in recent times as the double and triple games playing out in the context of the so-called ‘war on terror’ have become common knowledge.

When I suggest that Pakistani society has changed then, I am in part simply pointing to the fact that it is becoming clearer to a growing number of people within the Punjabi heartland that all Pakistanis do not share a heroic conception of the security apparatus, and that in fact many ordinary people in this land of the pure do not associate too many holy thoughts with our holy guardians after all. Of course the majority within the heartland is still prone to react to dissenting perspectives both within its midst and on the peripheries of the state. The simplistic binaries that have been inculcated within the Pakistani — and particularly Punjabi — mind cannot be undone overnight.

Yet there can be no denying that even Punjab is not the same as it was even a decade ago, not least of all because the Seraiki province issue has exploded the myth that Punjab itself is a monolith.

Meanwhile more and more people on the peripheries are becoming bolder in expressing their dissent about both the historic and present role of the security apparatus, including the intelligence agencies. The price that many ordinary people pay for simply speaking truth to power is, to be sure, incredibly high. Yet dissent continues to seep through the interstices of historically constituted structures of power.

This gradual change in society is both cause and consequence of the high-profile, sensational scandals about the intelligence agencies that erupt into the public consciousness with increasing frequency.

Our holy guardians will continue to try and manage the contradiction between the idealised notion of the security apparatus and its actual practices, but as I have already pointed out, the cat is just as likely to resist being put back into the bag.

What remains to be seen is if and how the historic posture of those who shape ‘public opinion’ evolves over time to give further impetus to this growing societal consciousness.

It would be naïve to expect the mainstream media, right-wing political forces and the conservative intelligentsia to become the vanguard of a countrywide movement to bring our spymasters to account. More generally intelligence agencies — in this country and others — will remain relatively immune to public accountability as long as the modern state exists in its current incarnation.

It is therefore of utmost importance for progressives to do everything in their power to keep the spotlight on our holy guardians, and in doing so continue to challenge the claim that the proverbial ‘greater national interest’ is synonymous with the interests of Pakistan’s people.

This means fending off the tendency to be risk-averse and recognise that it is increasingly difficult for the state to suppress dissent if more and more people demand that the security apparatus be held to account.

Pakistani stands at a crucial juncture of its history. There exists what is arguably a unique opportunity to develop a consensus about how power has been exercised in this country to date and how it should be exercised in the future.

Forging this consensus will not be easy because the polity, and society, is unquestionably divided. But forge it we must, because the state must ultimately be at the service of the people who live within it.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.