When the street rose against the entrenched regimes of Tunisia and Egypt and toppled them there was enthusiastic references to an 'Arab Spring'.

The nature of the political upsurge in these two countries was defined by western observers from their perspective as a movement in favour of democratic change by the urban middle class youth mobilised through the social media, and this description was accepted by the rest of the world without making an independent judgment.

If it was the West that had long backed the old regimes, it was they again that interpreted for the rest the character of the popular revolt against them.

Click here to read the rest of Kanwal Sibal's column at MailOnline India.