Daily Times

What we must know clearly by now is that it is Rawalpindi that holds the key to FATA reform, not Islamabad. Putting pressure on Islamabad is perhaps barking up the wrong tree. The civilian government is fighting for its own survival. Reforming FATA should be the last thing on its list of priorities. By chance or design, its coalition partners and Rawalpindi also seem to be on the same page.

Whether FATA reforms will ever see light of the day is an important question. But there are more important prior questions, which, for some mysterious reasons, are not part of the reform discourse. For example, what do common people of FATA want, how do we know what they want, and more importantly who represents their will? All stakeholders, especially the political parties, claim to know answers to these questions. After all, the contents of their proposed reform agendas are based on their peculiar understanding of answers to these questions.

And then almost all stakeholders have within their folds a few urbanized retired bureaucrats, middle class professionals – the FATA ‘experts’ – and traditional elders hailing from FATA. You will see their familiar faces in all almost every seminar, workshop, conference and political meeting on FATA organised by the political parties and other NGOs. Enough to lend credibility to the stakeholders’ claims!

However, what belies their ‘all-knowing’ claims about what people of FATA want is the wide array of prescriptions they offer – ranging from merger of FATA with KP, to giving it independent status as a province, to maintaining status quo, etc. Given that, their claims about what the people want could be guesses at best. This dichotomy between what the FATA might want and what the stakeholders think they want is the obvious result of a complete absence of the common people of the area from the reform discourse. They are indeed the only true stakeholders and yet nowhere to be seen. As the irony would have it, the stakeholders apparently fight for ‘democratic’ reforms in FATA, but none considers it appropriate or necessary to directly involve the common people in deciding their own future. Why is it so?

Reform proposals conceived by a group of retired civil and military bureaucrats, none of whom is from FATA, should not be sanctified by pressurising the civilian government for its implementation

On social media, the discussion unfolds so typically. First, you argue (really!) on the importance of directly involving the common people of FATA in the reform process. After all, you argue, it is their lives that would be directly affected by the reform, for better or worse. You try to convince the so-called stakeholders that this is the only way to lend ownership and democratic legitimacy to the final outcome of the reform process. This much is enough to break all the hell loose! With the mindset inherited from our colonial masters and with their backs cracking under the whiteman’s burden, the forces on the mission to ‘civilize’ these ‘primitive’, ‘tribal’, and ‘backward’ people from FATA, will jump at you. How dare you question their reform prescriptions which are based on time tested and self-evident truths, and thus offer the ultimate solution. You start wondering why stressing the democratic value of people’s direct participation in deciding their fate should be taken as an attack on the liberal values underlying their prescriptions of ‘mainstreaming’ FATA, which typically include, with slight variations, the extension of fundamental rights and jurisdiction of courts to FATA, representation of its people in legislatures, and some territorial re-arrangement.

You still do not lose your heart and try to convince them that without involvement of the common people, any reform effort, no matter how good it may be, might be perceived as another exercise in cultural imperialism. You try to remind them that the common people of FATA are not a herd of sheep. That they are intelligent enough to understand and decide what is best for them. And that they don’t need others to decide ‘for them’. Finding no argument against democracy, they would take another typical position: well, the direct involvement of the FATA people and ascertaining their democratic will is not possible at this stage for this or that reason. You will clearly see they are not open to the idea of finding out if there are any democratic techniques and processes that would make possible direct participation of common people in the reform process. They will come up with any and every excuse to defeat your original democratic argument or find ways around it. Even when they concede, their concession is reluctant and half-hearted.

Much has been said on how to ‘reform FATA’. Let us also learn first how not to reform it. To begin with, we must throw away our deeply held misconception about our own cultural superiority over the tribal ‘others’. We have to understand that the people of FATA need our partnership and not paternalistic benevolence. People everywhere, including the people of FATA, understand very well what is in their best interest. Different stakeholders can surely help the people make informed choices from the different socio- political, economic and constitutional options presented to them. But we must recognise that ultimately it is the right of the people to choose for themselves. No one else must decide what is best for them.

Nothing justifies circumvention of people’s right to directly participate in the reform process – not even the excuse of avoiding further delay, an argument typically put forward by many as a justification for pushing a rushed reform process. Reform proposals conceived by a group of retired civil and military bureaucrats, none of whom comes from FATA, should not be sanctified by pressurising the civilian government for its implementation. Winning a few more legislative seats in the upcoming 2018 elections could hardly provide a political party any justification for doing so. The people of FATA deserve better. They need to be treated with respect as human beings, not merely as present or future voters. Nor should FATA be treated merely as an electoral constituency. The resilience of FATA people is well known. They have endured the tyranny of state for seventy years. They can take it a little longer if that is the price they must pay for direct participation in rebuilding their future.

The writer hails from South Waziristan and is currently pursuing his PhD studies at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University. He can be reached at mzubair@indiana.edu

Published in Daily Times, October 21^st 2017.