This self-serving approach to govern has deprived large segments of the population of social and economic benefits.
ISLAMABAD: The Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), the set of rules and regulations governing the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), is a hybrid judicial system designed to maintain the writ of state over a wild tribal landscape and inherited from the British colonial era. It became a part of British tools in the Pakhtun border areas of the British rule in 1901, imposed on the pretext of maintaining law and order. The purpose of the law was to control and register crimes on government-controlled roads, offices, installations and passes, etc. Through the FCR, political agents administered 23 per cent of the area, while the rest was administered through tribal law, riwaj, with the help of tribal elders, who governed and settled disputes through a jirga.
This tribal belt was treated as a buffer zone by successive governments in Pakistan, which continued to govern Fata with colonial-era policies. This tool worked up to some degree of success until 1979, but later on created a vacuum for disorder and has since compounded the miseries of people therein with each passing day. This self-serving approach to govern has deprived large segments of the population of social and economic benefits, and thus created a huge vacuum for non-state actors.
Legislative tools, comprising of a set of laws and regulations applicable to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or elsewhere in Pakistan, should be adopted, framed and legislation should be made in consultation with the people and experts in law and administration so that the tribal belt could be brought on a par with the rest of the country. The area may be amalgamated with K-P or can be made a separate entity which would bring stability, tranquillity, peace and harmony in the long run within the tribal belt. This would minimise the threat to peaceful citizens all across the country. Otherwise, it would continue to prove a breeding ground for all sorts of extremists and terrorists for the foreseeable future.
Hussain Khattak
Published in The Express Tribune, July 10th, 2014.
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