ABSTRACT
Following a discussion on the ‘tribal’ Pashtuns and Pakistan’s postcolonial dilemma, Chapter 3 of this book discusses a brief history of what today constitutes the former-FATA region, the Durand Line (a colonial border that demarcated Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1890s) and how the colonial demarcation separated Pashtuns on both sides of the border. The chapter then discusses a brief history of the Pashtun ‘tribal’ areas after Pakistan’s independence in 1947. The chapter also briefly discusses the Afghan Jihad (1979–1989) and the role that these tribal regions played in terms of training of Jihadists, along with discussing the US War on Terror and its impact on the rise of militancy in the region post-2001. While discussing militancy post-2001, the chapter also provides an introduction to various militant groups that were formed and/or operated in the former-FATA region. In its final section, the chapter discusses the constitutional status of the tribal region and the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), a colonial set of laws used to govern the Pashtun tribes, which was persisted with by the Pakistani state after independence until May 2018.
