Back to the past for peace

By Kunwar Idris
INFORMATION Minister Sherry Rehman was ill advised to warn the Sharia campaigners of Swat against stopping girls from going to school. They reacted by burning down school buildings that took the toll beyond 180.Their reaction to the invitation of the NWFP Assembly for talks and the unanimous condemnation of their behaviour by the National Assembly may be no different.While the National Assembly’s resolution goes no further than to exhort the government to check militancy by creating jobs, which means brushing aside the real and pressing issue, the provincial assembly has called upon the religious parties to play their part or, so to say, help broker a deal with the terrorists. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, it is said, will act as an emissary of the legislators.The maulana who heads a parliamentary party that is allied with the government both at the centre and in the province will be surely making a sincere effort to persuade the militants to negotiate rather than terrorise. But his would be a religious approach to a problem that is essentially administrative. The violence may subside for a while if he mediates but will continue to simmer only to resurface one day in a more menacing form and covering a wider area.Objecting to women’s education is just one facet of extremism in Swat. Also under attack are some businesses like music and video shops which could offend the orthodox. In fact religion enjoins education — doctrinal and secular — irrespective of gender, wherever it can be best acquired. Hence, denial of education to women cannot be made negotiable on any religious pretext whatsoever.In Swat education for girls cannot be questioned on grounds of tradition either as indeed it can be in some other tribal societies. Swat had schools for girls half a century ago when it was a state ruled by the Wali — more in number and better in quality than in the settled parts of the province then. The agitation by latter-day mullahs is just one of the many consequences of the flawed policies of successive governments that have allowed extraneous considerations to influence administrative matters.Before merger with West Pakistan (One Unit) Swat, like the other two Frontier states of Dir and Chitral, was governed by the ruler under its own laws and customs. The political agent who reported both to the provincial and central government oversaw the administration to make sure that the few national laws and covenants that applied were not defied.In Chitral state where this writer was the political officer in the pre-merger days all affairs were conducted and disputes decided either under the rule of the Sharia or in accordance with local usage and traditions. The government’s crime regulations applied only in specific areas and situations and were rarely invoked. In the tenure of this writer it wasn’t found necessary to invoke the Frontier Crimes Regulation even once.Some offences fell in the jurisdiction of Meezan-i-Sharia. Most others were tried in a judicial council. Both worked under the watch of the political officer but the rules of evidence and punishment were so simply and clearly defined that partiality or corruption were seldom alleged for him to interfere.The state was so orderly and peaceful that even a lone stranger travelling across the length of the state stretching from verdant valleys to glacial heights abutting Tajikistan could expect only help and hospitality from the people along the way. It is a different story of crime and sectarian murders now. Chitral was isolated and poor. Swat was larger, accessible and a holiday resort but still peaceful as the administration was effective and trial of offences and settlement of disputes under the local laws was expeditious.The demand for the enforcement of the Sharia gathered support as crimes and the attendant hardship of the people grew and intensified. The new and complex laws and judicial procedures that had come to replace the rough and ready justice of the past did not provide either relief or security to the common people. They only added to their worries. The proliferating jihadis moved in to harness the general discontent to their advantage. The visible symbols of modernity or permissiveness like video cassettes and emancipated women going to schools and entering professions have become the targets of their wrath.The basic cause of unrest in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) is similar. There too the covenants and traditions that determined the relationship between the tribes and governmental authority, and varied from agency to agency, were made to give way to new laws and aggressive intervention. Then the tribal hierarchy broke down under the stress of jihad, first against the Soviets and currently against the Americans.The Mughals and later the British ruled the vast and varied Indian subcontinent by following a fundamental principle that whatever was working well — the law or the institution — must not be disturbed. We shouldn’t have.The best hope for peace and order still lies in going back to the system in which the government’s representative, the political agent, administers on the basis of the customs of each area or tribe. If Sharia is a part of the tradition, as it was in Chitral, so be it. A country of such great cultural and geographical diversity as Pakistan cannot be governed by one rigid code nor driven by one stick. The writ of the state has become a cliché. Whatever works should be allowed to do so.