New or Old Pakistan; what is there for the People of FATA

The debate about suprema­cy of the con­sti­tu­tion and the par­lia­ment is once again in the lime­light, thanks to the recent protests going on in Islam­abad. We saw the duo of Inqi­lab and Aza­di march­es giv­ing tough time to the law enforce­ment agen­cies, whose job is to ensure secu­ri­ty of the sen­si­tive state instal­la­tions, and then turn­ing vio­lent. The mob not only reached to the gates of the Prime Min­is­ter House and Par­lia­ment but also sus­pend­ed trans­mis­sion of the state tele­vi­sion for a short time. Amid the chaot­ic protests and the cloud­ed polit­i­cal atmos­phere around the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Avenue, the Par­lia­ment held some of the most active ses­sions in its his­to­ry. The peo­ple out­side demand­ed the Prime Min­is­ter to resign while inside the house, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans praised democ­ra­cy and the con­sti­tu­tion and assured the PM that the house stands with him.

The buzz­words and jar­gons of the nev­er end­ing debates dur­ing these polit­i­cal devel­op­ments in Islam­abad mean noth­ing to me. The ques­tions regard­ing democ­ra­cy, suprema­cy of the Par­lia­ment, uphold­ing the con­sti­tu­tion on one hand, and bring­ing about change, elec­toral reforms, and re- elec­tions on the oth­er hand, do not con­cern me. Peo­ple are wor­ried about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mil­i­tary coup. But frankly speak­ing, it again means noth­ing to me. None of the above could attract me.

But hold on. Do not get me wrong. I am a lib­er­al per­son who believes in democ­ra­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ism. I stand with democ­ra­cy, par­lia­ment and the con­sti­tu­tion. My rea­sons for dis­so­ci­at­ing myself from these protests are dif­fer­ent.
I hail from FATA. The present polit­i­cal cri­sis means noth­ing to me and to the mil­lions of peo­ple liv­ing in FATA. No mat­ter what the out­comes may be for the rest of Pak­istan, but the cur­rent cri­sis holds noth­ing for the most repressed region of the coun­try.

To live in the so-called trib­al areas of Pak­istan is to live under a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sanc­tioned dic­ta­tor­ship. The Con­sti­tu­tion of 1973 is a face­tious kind of doc­u­ment when it comes to FATA. The trib­al areas are con­sid­ered to be a part of Pak­istan under Arti­cle 1, while Arti­cles 51 and 59 pro­vide for a man­date of 20 seats in both hous­es of the par­lia­ment. But Arti­cle 247 of the same doc­u­ment takes away every­thing and leaves mil­lions of peo­ple of the trib­al areas at the mer­cy of one per­son – the Pres­i­dent of Pak­istan. In spite of host­ing 20 mem­bers, the par­lia­ment of Pak­istan can­not leg­is­late for FATA. The Pres­i­dent rules FATA as he pleas­es. What is the point of hav­ing a mem­ber of the par­lia­ment who can­not leg­is­late for us? And by the virtue of this fact, FATA is run by the Fron­tier Crimes Reg­u­la­tion (FCR) – a black law imposed by the British in 1901. It was slight­ly amend­ed in 2011 by Pres­i­dent Zardari which brought some cos­met­ic changes with no sub­stan­tial alter­ation.

The con­sti­tu­tion lists fun­da­men­tal rights and gives supe­ri­or judi­cia­ry the job of ensur­ing the pro­tec­tion of these rights but thanks again to Arti­cle 247 (7), nei­ther the Supreme Court nor a high court have any juris­dic­tion in FATA.
Unlike the rest of Pak­istan, FATA is ruled by men and not by law. The Pres­i­dent is the judi­cia­ry, the leg­is­la­ture and the exec­u­tive – all in one – for FATA. The Pres­i­dent then rules through Gov­er­nor KPK and a Polit­i­cal Agent in each trib­al agency.

In Islam­abad, some might be look­ing for­ward to a Naya Pak­istan and oth­ers may con­tin­ue to praise the par­lia­men­tary set­up and the con­sti­tu­tion, but nei­ther of them has got any­thing for us – the trib­al peo­ple. All I got to say is;
All you trib­al peo­ple! Hail to the Pres­i­dent.
It is only he who mat­ters.