After nearly five years of merger into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, former Pashtun tribal borderlands, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), could not be mainstreamed and put on the path of development as desired by the country’s policymakers at the time. Instead, the merger of the tribal areas, now known as merged tribal districts (MTDs), has given rise to many other problems while leaving the old issues unresolved and unaddressed.

It is because the merger was affected in extreme haste while no exhaustive homework was carried out before it to look into the short, medium and long-term pros and cons. More importantly, the local leadership of the tribal districts was not taken into consideration and confidence. Although it was not entirely important to take the local leadership on board to make strategic national level decisions because the local leaders have their own petty interest to advance, nevertheless, their opinion must have been taken while making important decisions like bringing fundamental changes in the status of their areas.

Insofar as the emergence of the new issues after the merger of the Pashtun tribal areas into KP is concerned the most significant is the resurrection of the largest terrorist militant network of Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In recent months, the TTP has staged several deadly attacks, including a late January attack on a mosque in police lines in Peshawar, killing more than 100 people and another attack on top police chiefs’ offices in Karachi, which killed five security personnel. The TTP resurgence is not sudden, rather since the merger of the tribal districts in May 2018, the group has been constantly regrouping itself. Although the top leadership of the TTP is based in Afghanistan after their defeat in large-scale operations by the military between 2014 and 2016, its support base has been intact in the tribal districts. The dilution of the support base could only be possible by appropriate policy decisions which could ensure good governance in the tribal districts. After the merger, the areas’ administration has become worse. This has reinforced the propaganda of the TTP that any effort to change the historical distinctive tribal status would be disastrous. It is important to note that the TTP, in its negotiations with government authorities last year, put the condition of reversal of FATA merger into KP for peace. The TTP has been wishing for the reversal of the merger of the tribal districts for its interests keeping in view its extensive support base in the region. However, at the same time it is trying to shrewdly represent the majority opinion in the MTDs that the merger was done without their wishes. So, the TTP has taken the fullest advantage of the merger of the tribal districts and the huge administrative vacuum it created.

After the passage of the 25th Constitutional Amendment, the FATA was merged into KP and with it the special status of the region along with its legal arrangement, Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), was dissolved. Ironically, it was on May 31, 2018, the last working day of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, President Mamnoon Hussain signed the FATA Merger Act, which made the merger complete and irreversible constitutionally. With the merger the jurisdiction of courts of Pakistan as well as the policing system and other state paraphernalia in theory was extended to the former FATA. However, practically the judicial and policing system in the merged districts exists only in name and leaves a lot to be desired. There is total confusion and the federal and provincial governments sought different timeframes to extend the judicial and policing system to the merged districts. It remains to be seen whether the extension of the system will be possible within the timeframes. However, the objective conditions on the ground suggest that it would be very difficult to extend the judicial and policing system of KP or for that matter the rest of Pakistan to the merged districts. The immediate obstacle to the complete extension of the judicial and policing system and the rest of the departments to the merged districts is the power struggle between the former KP Chief Minister Mahmud Khan and Governor Shah Farman and now between caretaker Chief Minister Azam Khan and Governor Ghulam Ali. In fact, Ghulam Ali’s party, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI), like the TTP, has been vehemently against the merger. Another significant obstacle to the extension of the judicial and policing system to the MTDs has been the hurdles created by the bureaucracy to the process of integration. Insofar as the power tussle between the governor and the chief minister on the merged districts is concerned, the former used to be the sole administrative head of the erstwhile FATA before the merger. In fact, by virtue of this legal position, the governor used to be the most powerful of governors in Pakistan as his counterparts in other provinces have been mere ceremonial heads. So, the KP governor wants to continue with the privileged position which the office used to enjoy with respect to the former FATA. It is interesting to note that the previous Governor, Shah Farman, from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), assumed the office after the July 25, 2018 elections and by that time the merger had been completed. It means that members of the bureaucracy, who have since long enjoyed the status of uncrowned kings of the FATA, somehow influenced Farman and present Governor Ghulam to demand the transfer of certain administrative departments to his domain. The demand is not only unconstitutional but also strange.

It must be acknowledged that as a chief executive, the performance of former PTI Chief Minister Mahmud Khan has been pathetic and he did not have an impressive style of governance. Therefore, it has been one of the key reasons that the administrative reforms process in the merged districts could not be taken forward. The fact of the matter is that after the merger, the provinces needed an extremely suave and smart chief minister to manage the process of change in a befitting manner. Unfortunately, CM Mahmud did not have what it takes in this regard. But apart from the power struggle between the governor and the chief minister, there are certain structural impediments to the extension of the policing and judicial system and the rest of the state paraphernalia to the merged districts. The fact of the matter is that the decision of the merger was fundamentally erroneous.

Resultantly, it was expected that merging FATA with KP would give birth to many issues and conflicts and, therefore, we have been warning in these lines against the step. Our decision-makers have also been cognizant of the issues and problems which the merger would generate. This was the main reason that the merger was put on hold for years and even the FATA Reforms Committee under Sartaj Aziz recommended the merger over five years. Nevertheless, it was considered important to make FATA a part of KP. One reckons that the main reason the decision-makers wanted to merge the FATA with KP immediately was the security question. The FATA, comprising seven districts and six sub-districts (frontier regions) straddle the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the Durand Line, has more or less been stateless territory till recently. Only military operations in the last decade against local, national and international terrorist and militant outfits, including Al Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and their affiliates, have restored order and the state writ in the areas for the first time. Since then, it has been realized that the mainstreaming of the remote and rugged tribal areas was extremely necessary. But the means of merger to mainstream FATA has failed. Therefore, some new ways should be found, otherwise the problem will fester.