The Fata reforms package continues to tread troubles waters. What once seemed to be opposition from just two parties – JUI-F and PkMAP – seems now to have become a more troubling issue after the Fata Supreme Council met Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Wednesday. A week back, the Fata tribal council had voted to become a separate province, instead of merging with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The council insisted that the people of the region want to maintain their separate identity. While that too should be their right, it cannot come at the cost of them continuing to live as marginalised citizens in the country. The use of the archaic FCR should have been done away the day Pakistan became independent. Regions can be free to negotiate what type of autonomy they want under constitutional limits without archaic laws being used to govern them. The trouble is that the non-seriousness with which the Fata reforms issue has been pursued over the last decade is now finally coming to light. Much of the real debates that needed to take place did not, as the government attempted to muster something of a minimal common denominator between all the stakeholders. This is certainly not what is needed for a region that has been marginalised structurally and left to become one of the hotbeds of violence and militancy in the country.
While the Fata Supreme Council could throw the entire process into a new crisis, there are signs that the JUI-F has relented and given some conditional support to the Fata reforms. This seems to be one situation where opposition walkouts from the National Assembly may just have an impact. The JUI-F appears isolated; and, frankly, it seems that any hope the party had of consolidating votes in KP is slowly being lost due to its parochial positioning on the Fata reforms bill. Instead of seeing this change as an opportunity to make inroads into the region, the JUI-F seems to see it as a threat to its political future. In acting on the defensive, it might be weakening itself politically. Instead, it is the Jamaat-e-Islami that seems to be the one positioned to gain the most by taking the most consistent stand on the issue and even initiating a long march which may just have forced the government’s hand. The trouble now is that with the demand of Fata being a separate province on the table, the JUI-F’s position may no longer be the biggest challenge going forward. The issue will need to be thrashed out as early as possible to move forward. Do we really want the people of Fata to continue to suffer the indignity of constantly asking for a resolution to this situation?