THE mainstreaming of Fata — a catch-all phrase for political, administrative, judicial and legal reforms — is both desperately overdue and direly needed.

Now, with the drafting of a bill that seeks to repeal the infamous Frontier Crimes Regulation, the state may finally be coming closer to bringing the colonial anachronism into the modern era.

The draft of the new law, as reported in this newspaper on Thursday, would formally rescind the FCR, but elements of the old tribal system would be fused with the legal system prevalent in the rest of the country.

The extension of the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court to Fata would give the region something its people have long desired, but has always been denied: a judicial appeals process that does not leave the political agents in Fata as the ultimate arbiters of justice.

Yet, at the local level, the office of the political agent and the tribal jirga would continue to be influential and powerful.

Judicial reforms, however, are only a part of the complicated jigsaw that is Fata.

A historically neglected region ravaged by war for a decade and with an internally displaced population that will eventually return to an area with no real economy, Fata’s challenges are manifold.

It is a sign of evolution in the state’s thinking that the fundamental question is no longer whether Fata should be maintained as a buffer between Afghanistan and Pakistan proper, but whether it should be an autonomous region, ie a province on its own, or integrated into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Yet, the manner in which some of the decisions are being taken — almost a secret compact between the federal government and the security establishment — leaves a great deal to be desired. Too often parochial interests — political versus security-oriented views — appear to be dominating the debate.

Consider the pull and push over whether Fata should be its own province or integrated into KP. A fifth province would disrupt the evolved structures of the rest of the state — four provinces and the federal government — and change finely tuned balances in resource distribution and representation in national bodies like the Senate and the Council of Common Interests.

Yet, a fifth province could jump-start the conversation about a more rational number of provinces to be created from the existing four. But such lofty ideas remain far from the ground.

The security establishment is known to favour the eventual merger of Fata into KP — perhaps in the belief that a separate Fata province could lead to Balochistan-style security problems eventually.

But merger with KP is being resisted by the Hazara faction of the PML-N because of the demographic shift it would herald for a combined province. Unhappily, narrow interests appear to be dominating the conversation on reforms so far rather than national, people-centric concerns.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2016