Grand designs

Anyone who does a little bit for Fata or even intends to do so in the future becomes ‘grand’ in his own perception and holds forth grandiloquently in front of the media which, without verifying the facts of the matter, extends a helping hand by portraying said person in the same way.
Similarly when a government functionary or political leader addresses people belonging to Fata the event invariably becomes ‘grand’ irrespective of the number of people present or the representational quality of those people.
The practice of calling small events ‘grand’ sends a wrong message to people all over the country. They are led to believe that Fata has become heaven on earth at their cost and expense, while they have been left behind. This is not at all the case. No development worth mentioning is taking place there. It is merely an exercise in propaganda and gimmickry.
Fata's importance for them, over the years, has been limited only to interaction with the media. The moment the cameras are switched off, their grand designs for the development of Fata are also switched off. That is why, despite all these so-called ‘grand designs’ one learns about from the media, Fata has remained as backward and poor as it was at the time of the creation of the country.
Every political notable or organisation uses the region for personal aggrandisement. The Shaheed Bhutto Foundation (SBF), a think tank of the Pakistan People’s Party, is no exception. According to a press release, it organised a meeting of some 300 people from Fata in a local hotel in Islamabad to brief the media about their recommendations for reforms in that area.
To lend credence to the recommendations of this group it was called the Fata Citizens Grand Assembly, thereby implying that it was a representative body of the entire tribal region. It certainly did not have such a broad representative character, and was merely a collection of SBF sympathisers whose recommendations might have been commendable but the way they projected themselves was totally incorrect.
This trend of small ‘grand’ events has become common practice over the years. The organisers of such events do not realise that calling such events grand has an adverse effect on the people of Fata. Upon learning of such events they start believing that something big is in the offing for development in the area; something that would materialise soon and benefit them. However, ultimately it turns out to be nothing but a farce which only adds to their sense of frustration.
And it is not just politicians and their lackeys but even government functionaries who resort to these means to garner cheap publicity and popularity. Fata secretariat's project of providing wheelbarrows to farmers in North Waziristan is a case in point.
In the SBF gimmick, the think tank gathered some people from Fata and named it the Fata Citizens Grand Assembly – neither grand nor representative of Fata by any standard. It would have been far better to have used the correct nomenclature of Shaheed Bhutto Foundation for the gathering rather than portraying it as some sort of a grandiose Fata Assembly. It was amusing to witness the indiscipline and show of anger by some members over seating arrangements (which also marred the proceedings of the meeting).
Shortly before the press briefing by SBF sympathisers and their meeting with the president another such group was also presented to him, by the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to thank the president for reposing confidence in him as governor for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata.It's a different proposition that his appointment proved to be a total disaster as his only visible contribution so far is the ‘successful’ election of his own father as member of the National Assembly.
Whether or not the SBF’s meeting with the president and its subsequent press briefing achieved the desired objective is beside the point; what I grieve over is the fact that Fata has always been used and abused by all for personal objectives. Nobody is really concerned about what is happening to the people there, otherwise they would have taken steps long ago to release them from the misery of being ruled by those in far-off places. They would have given them power, like everywhere else in the country, to govern themselves.
Now that political parties in the country are allowed to operate in Fata, they have also resorted to similar tactics using every occasion that they can get to propagate their designs in a ‘grand’ way. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI-F, which was active in that area even before the introduction of the Political Parties Act, used Fata to project its own objectives rather than addressing the core issues or problems faced by the people of the tribal belt.
Before the convening of an all-parties conference on the issue of militancy in Pakistan, the JUI-F organised a meeting of likeminded people from Fata naming it the Grand Tribal Jirga, which was geared more towards countering the effects of the ANP-sponsored conference held just a fortnight earlier rather than formulating a common strategy for the elimination of militancy from the country.
During all these turbulent years no federal minister or senior politician visited the tribal areas to express solidarity with the people of the region and share their sorrows or even to extend moral support to the soldiers embroiled in an unwanted war in the tribal areas. They kept a safe distance from that area, remaining ensconced in the red zone in Islamabad. It is only at election time that they suddenly remember the importance of the people of Fata and the significance of their culture which they show by wearing the tribal turban.
One can only wish they had shown as much concern earlier for the backwardness of the area and the injustices perpetrated on the people there. Had that been the case, by now the people of Fata would have achieved their goal of empowerment to ‘govern’ themselves instead of being ‘administered’ by others who neither understand their problems nor are really concerned about removing them.
Too many injustices have been borne by the people of Fata over the decades. All sorts of fruitless exercises were conducted in the name of development – all without any result. Every year, on paper, millions of rupees are spent and yet the net result remains zero with Fata being pushed even more towards grinding poverty, instead of climbing towards prosperity. No amount of these false and so-called ‘grand’ designs will help Fata develop.
This waste of money and time has to stop. It is high time charge of the area was handed over to the ones who live there for them to develop and prosper, as elsewhere in the country, if we really want Fata not to be used as a safe haven by unwanted elements – something that will hurt the entire country.
The writer is a former ambassador. Email: waziruk@hotmail.com