Is Fata a part of Pakistan?

This is the first time in history that political parties in the country would be contesting elections under their banners in the volatile region of Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) of Pakistan. While flexing muscles to jump into the arena they are trying to tie all loose ends for the first ever party based elections in that area. For this purpose representatives of the eleven major political parties from Fata met in Islamabad recently and at the end held a press conference which I also attended.
While appreciating the points that they made in the press conference to make free and fair elections possible, I drew their attention to Article 247 (b) of the constitution which imposes restrictions on parliament over-legislating for Fata. In other words this means that members of parliament, even those elected on party basis and genuinely representing the people there, would not be allowed, like their predecessors, to make laws for Fata or even to amend those existing now on the statute book. In other words they would be elected to parliament just to mouth inanities and blow hot air for drawing fat salaries and availing perks in return.
In such a situation, why should self-respecting persons become members of such a body? What difference will that make? They will be as ‘useful’ or ‘useless’, depending on which word one wants to use, as those elected (independents) before them.
Parliament is supposed to be a place where its members meet to make laws in the national interest. Also those members jealously guard the interests of the constituencies or areas they represent in the house. According to the Oxford dictionary, parliament means “a national representative body having supreme legislative powers within the state”. Is this true of our parliament? Can it be called a supreme legislative body of the state when it cannot legislate for the whole territory which comprises the country? It accepts representatives from Fata and at the same time denies them the right to legislate for that area. What a parliament we have
Why should MNAs and senators from Fata be members of this parliament where they are denied the right to make laws for their own area although they have the right in the same house to legislate for the rest of the country? Does it mean that Fata is not a part of this country? It beggars belief that a particular clause of the constitution was incorporated in it just to deprive residents of one area the right to frame laws for themselves, while guaranteeing the same right to all citizens in every other part of the country.
I have been raising the issue of the problem that Article 247(b) poses to Fata at various forums and the reply that I receive from our political leaders is common to all of them. They invariably blame the intelligence agencies for vigorously opposing any change at all in the existing system of governance in Fata. They prefer it to be kept isolated, under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, from the rest of the country so that their sole writ prevails there to the exclusion of the normal law of the land or due legal process.
It is difficult to say whether this is true or is just political ‘double speak’. But even if it is presumed to be true for the sake of argument, one finds that facts on the ground speak differently.
Fata as we are all aware is kept outside the legal jurisdiction of parliament through a constitutional clause and not by an ordinance or ordinary law passed by a simple parliamentary majority. And the architect of the constitution in 1973 was no other than the greatest political leader of the country with a towering personality having a complete hold over the civil and military bureaucracy at that time.
What impelled him and other leaders of political parties to include Article 247 (b) in the constitution? Were they so naive as not to foresee its repercussions in the days ahead? Didn’t they know that by doing so they would deprive not only the people of Fata but themselves as well from the power to frame laws for that area? Were the political leaders coerced or were they cajoled by this towering personality into agreeing to the inclusion of this article in the constitution?
It appears that at that time people in the settled areas paid scant attention to the problems faced by people in the tribal areas. That loss of attention towards Fata continues to this day. They are victims of the whims and wishes of rulers from outside who descend on them, conduct one experiment after another and then depart with their pockets full with ill-gotten gains made in the process.
Meanwhile the tribesman keeps suffering. We have wasted too much time doing this over and over again. Let us learn from history and stop repeating mistakes of the past. Let us empower the locals to govern themselves, to enable them to develop the area and bring it at par with the rest of the country.
Until such time that Article 247(b) is removed from the constitution the governance of Fata will remain in the hands of outsiders and the locals will remain at their mercy having no say whatsoever in their own affairs. For this abhorrent practice to change and for empowerment of the tribesmen to govern Fata all the political parties have to stand together to wash away the sins of their elders at the time of the framing of the constitution in 1973.
Conducting elections on party basis in the hope of bringing about any substantive change in Fata without amending or excluding Article 247(b) would be an exercise in futility. The parliamentarians thus elected will have no serious business to conduct; they will only indulge in minting money like their predecessors.
Other countries in the region are moving ahead at a dizzying pace, keeping up with the fast changing world while we are still mired at the point where our colonial masters left us over six decades ago in a system they imposed on us to keep us subjugated. Sixty-five years after independence we are still finding solutions to the problems in Fata using purely military mentality and strategy. This is a blinkered approach which must be discarded immediately. What do we stand to gain by holding on to a system that keeps Fata deprived and isolated from the rest of the country?
Enough water has passed under the bridge. Let us learn from history and not condemn ourselves forever by repeating mistakes of the past year in year out. It is time we rose to the occasion and proved to the world that we are a modern progressive nation quite capable of taking care of our problems in a rational, democratic manner and Pakistan, especially Fata, is not a regressive exporter of terrorism as some countries in the west propagate.

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