PAKISTAN: AXING THE ROOTS. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC MARGINALIZATION AND RISE OF MILITANCY IN PAKISTAN’S FEDERALLY ADMINISTERED TRIBAL AREAS

Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, a region lying on the boundary between Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and southern Afghanistan, controlled by the Federal Government of Pakistan, has been in the public eye following the event of the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The spate of the rise of militancy and insurgencies in FATA currently poses a serious threat to the political stability of Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively. Relying on the documentary methods of data collection and analysis, therefore, this study argues that the major factor underlying the prevailing militancy in FATA is the deep-seated political and socio-economic marginalization of the region. The study thus recommends, among other measures, that the Government of Pakistan needs to expedite actions to initiate and implement deliberate and well articulated holistic reforms to bring the region into the mainstream of Pakistan’s socio economic and political developmental agenda. The study concludes that the intentional and proper adoption and application of these measures would be a realistic way of ending the militancy and insurgency in FATA and achieving lasting peace in the region and Pakistan as a whole. Keywords: Governance/Politics, Economy, Marginalization, FATA, Militancy, Religion.