In his staged murder, that remains controversial and hitherto unexplained, Naqeebullah Mehsud has galvanized valiant residents of FATA region.
He has risen to eternal glory as a symbol of unity and courage that propelled a historic march towards Islamabad in a way never witnessed before. Naqeeb’s tragic murder also helped young Pashtoons rub off their political differences to appear as formidable stakeholders from the region once known as ‘ungoverned spaces or ilaqa ghair (no go areas)’.
Led by Manzoor Pashteen, hundreds of Mehsuds, Wazirs, Afridis, and Shinwaris, achieved, within days, what ANP-PPP-JUI-F and PkMAP had miserably failed – acceptance, both by civilian and military leaders, of their demands after over a decade of humiliations, sufferings and excesses by the ruling elites that include the military, the governor (who rules through the tainted FATA secretariat), and their appendages, the Maliks. The protesters trumped the traditional Pashtoon leadership – most of whom were compromised by circumstances and driven by agendas of the right and the left.
The elimination of the Watan Card, issued to all the internally displaced persons (IDPs), represents the first victory of the FATA residents, still waiting for the long-promised mainstreaming and a normal life under the constitution of Pakistan, instead of the dreaded FCR.
Directives by the Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa for ‘facilitation to the tribal brethren’ and for treating their CNICs as the only required identity document are indeed big steps, resulting from the Islamabad sit-in.
Until now, Watan Card, in addition to the CNIC, was required to enter areas like North Waziristan, Mehsud area of South Waziristan, and de-notified parts of Khyber, Orakzai and Kurram agencies.
Removal of often degrading security checks, an end to physical searches of men and women for entry and exit from their ancestral places and offensive questioning at security check posts will hopefully be the next natural consequences of the Pasthoon sit-in, which followed on the heels of decades of neglect, denial of fundamental rights and willful expedience in using these territories for political objectives by the military establishment in collusion with national political forces as well as external friends such as the United States, obviously resulting in the unchecked proliferation of political and social non-state actors such as religiously-driven militants and safe havens for terrorists and criminal syndicates.
All this eventually necessitated military operations such as Lion’s Heart (August 2008), Rah-e-Haq (May/Oct 2009), Zarb-e-Azb and Raddul Fassad – all focused on the anti-state Al-Qaeda linked TTP and other foreign terrorists such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). They have all been a demonstration of the state’s hard power with little focus on giving way to basic instruments of the soft power i.e. according a constitutionally sanctioned equal status to millions of FATA residents.
State institutions expected loyalty from these hapless people without affording them fundamental rights, the Article 25 on Equal Citizenry Rights never applied to them. Instead, the residents suffered discrimination on ethnic and social grounds through clichés and dogmas. Profiling of Pashtoons across Pakistan, blocking of CNICs of many Pashtoons living outside FATA and denial of property to them were some of the symptoms of the systemic discrimination.
Most still remain wary – of broken promises made by the governor of KP, who rules FATA on behalf of the President of Pakistan. In January 2017, the governor announced a Rs 2 billion housing scheme for Miranshah. Then in April, he announced a Rs500 million special aid package for Waziristan. As of now, nothing has happened on these two counts and Waziris are legitimately worried about these ‘unkept promises’.
FATA still awaits Rs27m annual development plan funding that the region was supposed to receive before June 2018. Will it take another sit-in to get those promised funds, or will the PML-N now inject those funds as a means to ensure maximum votes?
Has a dead Naqeebullah Mehsud forced open the gates of indifference that have so far obstructed meaningful integration and recognition of FATA as a full Pakistani territory? Isn’t it a wake-up call for the forces of status-quo, which have been thriving off the constitutional helplessness of their voters? It’s about time for both the military and the civilian elites to wake up to the dire need of constitutionally elevating FATA residents to equal citizens of the country.
Published in Daily Times, February 17th 2018.
