Much that has been written by the critics of the FCR isn’t true. It is wrong to say that the erstwhile Britishers had drafted that black law. The fact of the matter is that what the Brits did was that they had only codified the Riwaj being observed by the tribesmen into a book form. Granted that its section 40 had been butt of much criticism as it vested draconian administrative powers in the hands of the political agent which were some time abused but those powers had been curtailed to a considerable extent by creation of an appellate tribunal which sat in judgment over the verdicts given by the political agent under section 40 FCR so to scrap the entire FCR on the excuse of section 40 FCR wasn’t rational.
The concept of collective tribal territorial responsibility which was the linchpin of the political administration in FATA and which had stood the test of time was done away with without any solid rhyme and reason .
When Pakistan came into existence in 1947 only 25 percent area of FATA was politically and physically accessible, the rest was off limits for outsiders who had to rely on their safety whenever they wanted to visit FATA on local gunmen billed as Khassadars belonging to local tribes who were responsible for the maintenance of law and order and also and they also provided security cover to the outsiders visiting tribal area which included seven agencies and four frontier regions known as South Waziristan north Waziristan Kurram Orakzai Khyber, Mohmand and Bajuar Peshawar, Kohat, Bannuu, Lakki, Tank and DIK Frs.
FCR wasn’t that bad as it had been made out to be by some vested political quarters. Whether one believes it or not it is FCR which was
the mainstay of stable law and order inside FATA as compared to law and order of the revenue districts.
No visible improvement has been witnessed in the law and order of FATA after its merger with the KPK. The tribesmen still continue to get their civil and criminal cases decided through century old Jirga system which they consider handy as verdicts given by it were quick and they are saved by undergoing hassle of visiting courts in revenue districts and paying hefty amounts to lawyers for contesting their cases.
Needless to say that the erstwhile Britishers had introduced the indirect governance system in our tribal belt after a lot of brainstorming and experience as they had come to the conclusion that it suited the genius of the tribesmen and time proved that they weren’t far wrong in their assessment.
