Tribal Elders and Societal Inequities in Pakistan’s Northwestern Borderlands (1947-2018)

Pakistani tribal elders policed and governed their communities in the Pakhtun northwest until they were dismissed in 2018. This paper looks at the role of elders as community leaders and as jurists. The state gave privileges and issued threats to tribal elders, required them to carry out surveillance and community policing for borderland defense in their territories, and to serve on tribal courts called “jirgas” to sentence those accused by the state of crimes. Community members also turned to jirgas to adjudicate intra-tribal accusations of crimes and civil disputes. The principle that the cultural code of Pakhtunwali prevailed in the region provided the rationale for the involvement of elders in border management and adjudication of disputes, but the elements of this so-called tribal code do not emerge in documentation of legal proceedings. These, my paper argues, are better understood as mediations. Judgments in these legal proceedings shaped tribal belonging and status. This paper describes governmental expectations of elders and jirga proceedings as dynamic activities carried out against the backdrop of an armed society and everyday violence, constituting societal inequity. In doing so, it offers a fundamental rethinking of the underpinnings of tribal hierarchy in Pakistan’s northwest.