Daily Times

After yet again backtracking on its commitment to table the FATA reforms bill on Monday, the government finds itself in a tight spot.

On Monday, the united opposition had boycotted the National Assembly session and announced that it would not attend the proceedings until the bill was tabled in the Parliament. Then, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) threatened to stage a sit-in at the Faizabad interchange if the process for FATA merger is not kicked off by December 31.

Alongside the mainstream opposition parties, a newly-formed FATA youth jirga has also been raising its voice on the issue, demanding expedited efforts for the merger of the region with the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa (KP) province.

Unlike mainstream parties, however, the jirga members have rightly protested the failure of the authorities concerned to take into account the views of women and other marginalised communities of the region. These are legitimate concerns and must be addressed as the merger process gets underway. Addressing these concerns will entail ensuring wide-ranging consultations with FATA’s civil society and political actors.

Mainstreaming FATA should have been done 70-years ago. The region has been a part of this country and yet has been governed using draconian colonial era Frontier Crimes Regulation. This has robbed generations after generations in FATA of their fundamental right of self-determination, not to mention that it has made a mockery of Pakistan’s credentials as a democratic republic.

Only two parties in alliance with the ruling PML-N have consistently been opposing the merger option. The ruling party needs to fast track its consultations with these allies. The fate of an entire region and its people cannot be held hostage to the wishes of two political parties, who may or may not be popular in the region to begin with.

The constitution needs to be extended to the region immediately.  *

Published in Daily Times, December 14^th 2017.