Pakistan in Media

What should have happened years, possibly decades, ago has finally been done. The president has announced a far-reaching reform plan for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Befittingly enough, the plan, which aims to pull the tribal areas into the mainstream of Pakistan, was announced on the eve of Pakistan’s 63rd Independence Day. In the past, romanticised notions of tribal ‘autonomy’ and ‘honour’ have prevented the state from offering the impoverished people of these areas the rights they should enjoy as citizens. Finally, there has been a recognition that there is nothing desirable at all about relegating some 3,341,000 people to lives lived in squalor and illiteracy. Less than 35 per cent of households in the area live above the poverty level, per capita income is half the national average of US $500 and the literacy rate is still below 20 per cent. Access to even rudimentary healthcare is extremely limited. As a result maternal and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world. It is hard to see in this situation even a modicum of ‘honour’.
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