FATA’s belated decolonisation
But most immediately through the merger, people of Fata may finally find solace
The writer is a lawyer and can be reached on twitter @shahzaibkhan901
In a rare show of strength, the country’s parliament passed the 31st Amendment this week to bring the people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas out of more than 100 years of colonially retrograded limbo. With the amendment, all references to the term Fata were taken out of the Constitution, and a process was initiated whereby the lands that constitute Fata would merge into neighbouring Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Fata had become for some time a hotbed of militancy. Militancy found an obvious host in the underdevelopment, alleged lawlessness and most importantly isolation of Fata. For most of its history, this isolation and the resulting underdevelopment have been blamed on Fata’s people. They have been regularly characterised as fiercely independent, to the extent, where they would resist any symptom or catalyst of progress, preferring isolation, and a way of life that has existed for centuries.
What has largely, and perhaps criminally, been overlooked is the reason for the isolationism, how colonial Britain’s imperialism, and its colonial legacy sentenced the people of Fata to a stillborn fate.
A history of sustained resistance to foreign imperialism is what has always been worn with pride by generations of Fata’s people, a collection of mostly Pashtun tribes, but it is this resistance to colonial imperialism that condemned the region to developmental exclusion. To control a particularly independent people, the British Raj, in the early 20th century, subjected Fata to the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).
In short, the FCR is a set of draconian laws set out to ensure control over a territory by subjugating a population to exclusion and most importantly by statutorily superimposing some of the worst cherry-picked quasi-laws and customs that the region was known to host, thereby artificially stunting what would have been the natural growth of Fata’s laws, customs and ultimately its people. This was in stark contrast to what the British did elsewhere in the subcontinent, where in their drive to “modernise” society, indigenous laws and customs would often fall victim to more “European” replacements. And yet, Fata’s people were subjected to laws, which as a part of the FCR legalised collective punishments for the tribe or the entire family of an individual who had been convicted of a crime by a court consisting of tribal elders. When in 1947 Pakistan was created, the FCR was carried forward. This meant that Fata remained outside the jurisdiction of parliament and most importantly the courts of Pakistan. Pakistan’s laws would not apply to Fata, nor would the courts be able to adjudicate disputes originating in the area. Instead the region, which is currently home to roughly 5 million people, was to be controlled through a fiefdom of unaccountable political agents that would (un)govern the region indefinitely with a legal toolset comparable most effectively to a rock.
Legally, this meant that Fata’s residents lived without fundamental rights such as the right to legal representation, the right to appeal and the right to present evidence. Medieval customs such as collective punishment for entire villages if a crime was committed in the village, arbitrary arrests and quasi-judicial rulings were given statutory backing and transformed into laws that have existed to this day.
While the rest of Pakistan has been able to enjoy a semblance of modernity, and more importantly a form of basic rights protection through the 70 years of lawmaking that has formed the Constitution, these very fundamental right protections have not been extended to a people that to this day have been subjected to a mostly unchanged set of laws codified more than 100 years ago. To those afar, this has relevance mostly in the natural home that militancy had found in the region. But as effective military operations by the Pakistan Army weeded out the militancy, the relevance was at the risk of once again fading.
To the people of Fata the relevance was and is the same, yet much more. To them, the FCR, and everything it accompanies, including the term Fata itself, has meant being condemned to a hostile past, being unfairly and criminally segregated from a nation that strode on to high rises and economic corridors while a few miles away Fata lived in desolation. It has meant being excluded from a global order that has selfishly assumed an unflinching standard of human rights while condemning Fata to a most repressive and tyrannical colonial legacy, since no colonial legacy is more tyrannical than one which indefinitely disallows the independent growth of even its former subjects. It has meant 5 million people being blamed for rejecting progress and basic human rights when in reality they were stripped off the choice to reject or accept the same a century ago.
Now, once again, as was done more than 100 years ago, and then again 70 years ago, and at regular intervals in Pakistan’s history, the unfortunate people of Fata were on the verge of being forgotten in an oblivion of colonially-arrested development. And this is where Pakistan’s parliament may deserve the kudos. By approving the merger, and thereby ridding Fata of the FCR, parliament has ensured basic constitutional protections for the people of Fata.
Without many saving graces in the preceding half a decade, parliament may have just found its elusive redemption. Naturally, commendations and praises for parliament have been coming in from across the country and from the global community for the merger. But the commendation and the redemption are qualified, since they are not entirely for me to afford, or for you, unless either of us has experienced existence without basic human rights, or has been subjected to a century of incessant underdevelopment, a nightmarish, indefinite colonial lag. Unless we have been subjected to darkness in a world full of light for as long as the people of Fata have, any kudos is tainted with countless questions and complaints, with unfulfilled responsibilities and unanswered pleas, as to why, when the rest of the nation celebrated and exercised its independence, the people of Fata were condemned to an unfavourable past.
It is perhaps most interesting to see some political leaders from Fata still protest the merger and vehemently resist it, terming the merger part of a foreign design. An allegedly foreign design as opposed to what, one wonders, considering, centuries old colonial legislation is hardly best described as indigenous.
And so, while questions remain as to why this merger did not take place earlier, or what interest does it serve to resist the abolition of the FCR, the merger of Fata may serve as a critical flashpoint. For the still existing forgotten communities across Pakistan, and across the world, inadvertently and unknowingly carrying tyrannical colonial legacies as burdens to their future, this merger may offer hope. Even more importantly, it may help us, as post-colonial nations, look at our communities through a more informed perspective, where the nuances of colonial hangovers may be discoverable, and ultimately rectified. But most immediately through the merger, the people of Fata may finally find solace, in having gained independence as part of Pakistan more than 70 years ago, yet only now, and at long last, truly escaping the tyranny of colonialism.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 3rd, 2018.
Fata had become for some time a hotbed of militancy. Militancy found an obvious host in the underdevelopment, alleged lawlessness and most importantly isolation of Fata. For most of its history, this isolation and the resulting underdevelopment have been blamed on Fata’s people. They have been regularly characterised as fiercely independent, to the extent, where they would resist any symptom or catalyst of progress, preferring isolation, and a way of life that has existed for centuries.
What has largely, and perhaps criminally, been overlooked is the reason for the isolationism, how colonial Britain’s imperialism, and its colonial legacy sentenced the people of Fata to a stillborn fate.
A history of sustained resistance to foreign imperialism is what has always been worn with pride by generations of Fata’s people, a collection of mostly Pashtun tribes, but it is this resistance to colonial imperialism that condemned the region to developmental exclusion. To control a particularly independent people, the British Raj, in the early 20th century, subjected Fata to the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).
In short, the FCR is a set of draconian laws set out to ensure control over a territory by subjugating a population to exclusion and most importantly by statutorily superimposing some of the worst cherry-picked quasi-laws and customs that the region was known to host, thereby artificially stunting what would have been the natural growth of Fata’s laws, customs and ultimately its people. This was in stark contrast to what the British did elsewhere in the subcontinent, where in their drive to “modernise” society, indigenous laws and customs would often fall victim to more “European” replacements. And yet, Fata’s people were subjected to laws, which as a part of the FCR legalised collective punishments for the tribe or the entire family of an individual who had been convicted of a crime by a court consisting of tribal elders. When in 1947 Pakistan was created, the FCR was carried forward. This meant that Fata remained outside the jurisdiction of parliament and most importantly the courts of Pakistan. Pakistan’s laws would not apply to Fata, nor would the courts be able to adjudicate disputes originating in the area. Instead the region, which is currently home to roughly 5 million people, was to be controlled through a fiefdom of unaccountable political agents that would (un)govern the region indefinitely with a legal toolset comparable most effectively to a rock.
Legally, this meant that Fata’s residents lived without fundamental rights such as the right to legal representation, the right to appeal and the right to present evidence. Medieval customs such as collective punishment for entire villages if a crime was committed in the village, arbitrary arrests and quasi-judicial rulings were given statutory backing and transformed into laws that have existed to this day.
While the rest of Pakistan has been able to enjoy a semblance of modernity, and more importantly a form of basic rights protection through the 70 years of lawmaking that has formed the Constitution, these very fundamental right protections have not been extended to a people that to this day have been subjected to a mostly unchanged set of laws codified more than 100 years ago. To those afar, this has relevance mostly in the natural home that militancy had found in the region. But as effective military operations by the Pakistan Army weeded out the militancy, the relevance was at the risk of once again fading.
To the people of Fata the relevance was and is the same, yet much more. To them, the FCR, and everything it accompanies, including the term Fata itself, has meant being condemned to a hostile past, being unfairly and criminally segregated from a nation that strode on to high rises and economic corridors while a few miles away Fata lived in desolation. It has meant being excluded from a global order that has selfishly assumed an unflinching standard of human rights while condemning Fata to a most repressive and tyrannical colonial legacy, since no colonial legacy is more tyrannical than one which indefinitely disallows the independent growth of even its former subjects. It has meant 5 million people being blamed for rejecting progress and basic human rights when in reality they were stripped off the choice to reject or accept the same a century ago.
Now, once again, as was done more than 100 years ago, and then again 70 years ago, and at regular intervals in Pakistan’s history, the unfortunate people of Fata were on the verge of being forgotten in an oblivion of colonially-arrested development. And this is where Pakistan’s parliament may deserve the kudos. By approving the merger, and thereby ridding Fata of the FCR, parliament has ensured basic constitutional protections for the people of Fata.
Without many saving graces in the preceding half a decade, parliament may have just found its elusive redemption. Naturally, commendations and praises for parliament have been coming in from across the country and from the global community for the merger. But the commendation and the redemption are qualified, since they are not entirely for me to afford, or for you, unless either of us has experienced existence without basic human rights, or has been subjected to a century of incessant underdevelopment, a nightmarish, indefinite colonial lag. Unless we have been subjected to darkness in a world full of light for as long as the people of Fata have, any kudos is tainted with countless questions and complaints, with unfulfilled responsibilities and unanswered pleas, as to why, when the rest of the nation celebrated and exercised its independence, the people of Fata were condemned to an unfavourable past.
It is perhaps most interesting to see some political leaders from Fata still protest the merger and vehemently resist it, terming the merger part of a foreign design. An allegedly foreign design as opposed to what, one wonders, considering, centuries old colonial legislation is hardly best described as indigenous.
And so, while questions remain as to why this merger did not take place earlier, or what interest does it serve to resist the abolition of the FCR, the merger of Fata may serve as a critical flashpoint. For the still existing forgotten communities across Pakistan, and across the world, inadvertently and unknowingly carrying tyrannical colonial legacies as burdens to their future, this merger may offer hope. Even more importantly, it may help us, as post-colonial nations, look at our communities through a more informed perspective, where the nuances of colonial hangovers may be discoverable, and ultimately rectified. But most immediately through the merger, the people of Fata may finally find solace, in having gained independence as part of Pakistan more than 70 years ago, yet only now, and at long last, truly escaping the tyranny of colonialism.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 3rd, 2018.