The situation in the backward wilderness of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) has been simmering for the last few years. The British imperialists called these badlands, and therefore carved the region to contain the Pakhtun tribes straddling across their imposed Durand Line of 1893. The Colonial Raj indirectly ruled FATA brutally through the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), first promulgated in 1872. Under this archaic law, an innocent individual could be imprisoned for the crimes of his or her relatives. Families were subjected to collective punishment, the government could displace entire villages without compensation, explanation, or warning and individuals would languish behind bars for years without any charges being filed.

These laws prevailed for 70 years after the so-called independence of 1947. The recent anti-terrorist operations have inflicted dreadful collateral damage. Hundreds of thousands were displaced from their homes; villages and bazaars were bombed into ruins, thousands of civilians were killed and maimed in this crossfire. Many thousands remain ‘missing’ in suspicion of supporting the Taliban. It has now been decided, however, that FATA is to be merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Last Thursday, Pakistan’s parliament approved the 31st Amendment Bill 2017 to the 1973 Constitution for the merger of FATA with KP. However, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) opposed the bill and staged a walkout. Their vested interests seemed to be in conflict with those of the other mainstream parties and their bosses. But an earlier high level meeting of the military establishment and the government ensured the passage of this bill.

The passage of the bill became necessary after an unprecedented political movement by FATA’s youth started last autumn. The extrajudicial murder of a young Pakhtun named Naqeeb Ullah Mehsud in Karachi by the police accentuated the uprising. Hundreds of thousands of Pakhtuns, as well as members of other ethnicities thronged to the mass rallies supporting the demands of the PTM. These included putting an end to the discriminatory treatment of FATA’s people, including harassment of tribal women by security forces at check posts; recovery of missing people covertly abducted by intelligence and security agencies; the removal of hazardous landmines and the reconstruction of their property, which was destroyed during military operations.

There is no industry in FATA, and social infrastructure is negligible. More and more people have turned to the narcotics and the arms trade to earn a living

The regime and the military establishment were caught unawares and baffled by the intensity and vigour of this new movement from the tribal areas, but all media outlets have capitulated to complete censorship of this movement. The deep state has resorted to stealth repression. However, it has continued to garner support and has successfully held some of the largest rallies held by any indigenous grass route movement over the last few decades. The fight is far from finished.

FATA’s people were the main sufferers of the Afghan Dollar Jihad during the late 1970s and 1980s. After the collapse of the USSR and subsequent departure of the Americans, FATA became a hub of the drug trade and a training ground for Islamist sects breeding terrorism. Western and regional imperialists have kept their proxies, wreaking havoc in their lust for FATA’s abundant natural and mineral resources, along with its strategic significance. FATA has also been subjected to a blitzkrieg of indiscriminate US drone attacks, mainly killing civilians.

The CIA financed reactionary insurgency in Afghanistan with locally generated black capital from the drug trade, ransom and other crimes. The black economy still dominates the region and the rest of Pakistan. Any structural change in the administrative apparatus and political setup would be unable to break the strangle hold of the drug barons and bosses of this black capital. Keeping the Levies force intact according to this plan will continue a parallel law-enforcement apparatus, which will further confuse jurisdiction.

FATA is the most impoverished and least developed region of the country. It is an arid mountainous region, made up of seven ‘political agencies’ Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, Orakzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan, spanning 27,220 square kilometres. Literacy rate is 17.4 percent, and only three percent amongst women. Eighty-six percent of the population lives beneath the poverty line. Traditionally, the economy was based on subsistence agriculture, rearing livestock the indigenous weapons manufacturing industry and small-scale businesses. Many locals have migrated to larger cities and abroad in search of jobs. The internecine wars have destroyed their orchards, small businesses and other sources of livelihood. There is no industry and social infrastructure is negligible. More and more people have turned to the narcotics and the arms trade to earn a living.

With these socioeconomic conditions, the merger of FATA with KP would not make much difference for the oppressed. Access to the courts and other state institutions is going to be limited to the elite and sections of the middle class. The aristocratic elite related to black capital will continue to dominate the region economically, socially and politically. On the other hand, the demand for referendum in FATA for making it a separate province is also restricted to administrative changes only. The solution to the woes of the oppressed masses is the necessity of a socioeconomic system that can guarantee development; eliminate poverty, misery, illiteracy and deprivation. Other regions of the country have only a relatively better socioeconomic situation. Oppressed masses everywhere are yearning for an end to this exploitative system.

However as Marx explained, wherever capitalism exists, it penetrates into the deepest and farthest regions of the society. However, due to the rotten nature of Pakistan’s capitalism, its penetration has created more unevenness rather than any harmony and social development. In FATA, conditions of medieval ages exist side by side with the most modern smart phones and other 21st century gadgets. Rather than eliminating backwardness, this distorted and weak capitalist modernity has made this medieval tribal system more corrupt, criminal, reactionary and vicious; creating seething contradictions. The courageous uprising of the Pakhtun youth from this primitive area was actually an explosion of these contradictions. For the attainment of their basic human rights and fundamental necessities of existence, this struggle of the Pakhtun youth has to be linked with the class struggle of the oppressed throughout South Asia. Only through a revolutionary strike can these colonial shackles be broken. Only by transforming this socioeconomic system can FATA be brought out of the wilderness of terror and backwardness and its people achieve emancipation and prosperity.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, May 28th 2018.