Fata misrule

The tirade unleashed against the appointment of a tribesman as governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa indicates only one thing, and that is the mindset of those who work against the interests of the people of Fata. Whenever a voice is raised against the injustices perpetrated upon the people of Fata some elements with their own agenda surface to criticise those who speak out.

The appointment of a tribesman as governor is certainly a positive step and in the best interests of the people there, but now those who do not want to see Fata put on the right track have started finding faults with the appointment. They arrogate the right to have someone from among themselves as governor, and consider the people of Fata as subjects to be ruled by them.

This is not the first time that the people of Fata have been discriminated against. The history of the country is replete with injustices meted out to the people of that area after independence. The first such act was the retention of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) in Fata, which had been imposed by the British for furtherance of their own imperial interests. Initially it was imposed in some other parts of India as well.

Later, it was withdrawn from there but kept in the areas now called Fata. After independence our rulers retained it in Fata on the pretext that that was a demand of the people of the area. Its retention may have been sought by a limited number of Maliks, but they certainly did not represent the people and had been selected by the political agents and brought to Peshawar to meet the Quaid-e-Azam.

For the sake of argument, even if we presume that it was a demand of the people of Fata, why did the enlightened rulers not put their foot down and disagree with the perpetuation of a colonial system which, by any definition, was cruel, inhumane, un-Islamic and against the interests of the people there? Had it been beneficial and worthy of retention, they should have extended it to other areas of the country as well, instead of restricting it to Fata only.

Then came the time when a new constitution was to be framed for the country in 1973. Again one finds a glaring example of discrimination in Article 247(b), which removes Fata from the legislative ambit of parliament and places it solely at the mercy of a single individual called the president of Pakistan. No one other than him can formulate rules and regulations for Fata or change the status of that entity.

The political parties which are now finding faults in Fata or want its merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had endorsed Article 247 (b) and agreed to keep Fata distinct from the rest of the country, as far as parliament was concerned. Instead of blaming the people of Fata they should do some soul-searching and atone their sins by repealing this article and restoring the place of Fata within the ambit of parliament.

Until then Fata parliamentarian have no role to play other than casting votes in favour of the party in power whenever required to do so. Their importance is limited only to this role which they faithfully and dutifully perform in return for bounties that are showered upon them by the government.

Another injustice was the treatment of the people of Fata differently from people in the rest of the country. This is done through the introduction of a different system of elections for Fata whereby the Maliks only elected individuals from among themselves as members of parliament. In this manner the majority of people were deprived of their right to be elected despite their demands for adult franchise, which fell on deaf ears.

The civil bureaucracy (political agents) who rule the area and wield undisputed power opposed the extension of one-man, one-vote to Fata through the Maliks. When introduced in 1997 it was greatly welcomed by the people and even women participated in the general election in large numbers, without creating any law-and-order situation, as had been wrongly anticipated and propagated by people with vested interests.

Yet another glaring example of intentional discrimination surfaced in the 18th Amendment to the constitution, where Fata was totally ignored in allocation of resources. As it was neither a province nor a part of a province for purposes of receipt of its share in national resources, it was left high and dry and at the whims of an individual who has never bothered to visit that area of his country even once during his five-year rule.

A serious problem in the 18th Amendment which the Fata parliamentarians either did not realise or conveniently ignored was the insertion of Article 101 which reads:

1. There shall be a governor for each province, who shall be appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister.

2. A person shall not be appointed a governor unless he is qualified to be elected as member of the National Assembly and is not less that thirty-five years of age and is a registered voter and resident of the province concerned.

While this amendment enables people of other provinces to become governors of their respective provinces the people of Fata are denied that right. In other words, a person from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa can become a governor of that province and rule Fata as the agent of the president, but the same right is not given to a person from Fata.

This is discrimination of the highest order and a blatant violation of the basic human rights of the people of Fata, which must be remedied. There is no doubt that an MNA from Fata was made a member of the committee that drafted the 18th Amendment but he may not have understood the implications of the article not being fully conversant with English or aware of the nuances contained in constitutional or legal documents.

His colleagues on the committee, who were highly qualified, understood English better and knew the repercussions of this article should have taken care of the right of the people of Fata. However, nobody appears to have bothered about the consequences of the wording of this article until the appointment of the incumbent governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who happens to be a tribesman hailing from Bajaur Agency.

The honourable chief justice could take suo motu notice of the imbalance contained in Article 101 of the constitution denying equal rights to the people of the tribal areas. He could look into the matter for interpretation as to whether to return it to parliament for amendment or separate the governorship of Fata from that of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to give the right to the people there to have a governor of their own, as in the case of the other four provinces of the country and Gilgit Baltistan.

Why should Fata always remain as the only place in the country not to have a government of its own or a governor from amongst its people?

The writer is a former ambassador.Email: waziruk@hotmail.com