Islamabad’s Anna Hazare

Ayesha Siddiqa

Has anyone heard of Pakistan’s very own Anna Hazare? His name is Jahangir Akhtar — a middle-class trader who went on a hunger strike to protest against corruption and plight of the poor in the country. Unfortunately, Akhtar barely managed to gather seven-10 people around him, at any given time, during the eight days of his hunger strike in September. Eventually, Akhtar was convinced to end his protest after a symbolic visit of a parliamentary group on September 21.

 Perhaps his team was not good at marketing, as there was no media coverage of this event. In this age of information, it’s the media coverage that makes an event big or small. In the case of India, all the media groups, to pressure the Congress government (which they like far less than any other government), backed Anna Hazare. Also, numerous media stalwarts, who had an axe to grind with the government for being exposed in recent financial scams, got a chance to get even. Jahangir Akhtar was never so fortunate to get such media coverage, despite the fact that he had camped in front of the Islamabad Press Club. None of our big anchors considered the event worth their while. There are very few foreign journalists who had even heard about Akhtar’s protest. Interestingly, even those media groups that have an axe to grind with the government rallied around Akhtar. Nor did one see or hear of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf or the Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Association — both entities that are extremely fired up to fight corruption — rallying around the man.

Actually, both India’s Anna Hazare and Pakistan’s Jahangir Akhtar tell the story of the middle-class bias from a different perspective. While Hazare’s successful show indicated how India’s middle-class will rally around a cause that simply attacked the traditional elite, Pakistan’s Akhtar failed because he did not limit his protest to the traditional elite but had wanted to include the corruption and extortion of the middle-class in his protest agenda. He had not just asked for an anti-corruption legislation but reduction in defence spending and turning Pakistan into a welfare state. It was easier for people amongst the Indian middle-class to rally around Hazare, whom some on the Indian media and academia suspect of having views that are right of centre, since he did not aim to challenge the national security paradigm. In fact, Hazare’s supporters have never gathered in the same fashion around other protesters like the Maipuri woman Irum Sharmila, who has been protesting for the past 10 years for the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act used against ordinary people in India’s northeast and Kashmir.

Pakistan’s middle-class is no different. In fact, one of the prominent media groups, known for its bravado and capacity to remain controversial, insisted that Akhtar drop the reference to the defence budget and welfare state. In a country where the military and its intelligence apparatus is known for controlling and gagging, who would want to risk being part of a protest that demands reduction in the power of the deep state? Had it been an issue merely of political corruption, perhaps parties like the JI and the PTI would have gathered around to give a fillip to the protest. This is the same mentality that will not allow the civil society, including the media, to stand up to protest the heinous killings of the Hazara Shia and other minority groups and of innocent people in general, in Balochistan or elsewhere in the country.

Pakistan is experiencing the deliberate evolution of a new narrative that presupposes the country’s development due to the proliferation of the middle-class which is viewed as an engine of progress. Many books, which are highly recommended by ISPR, follow this line and talk about the civil-military bureaucracy as the engine of progress and enlightenment in the country. So, why bother to talk about their imperfections and corruption? Why make an effort to highlight the fact that a large part of this middle-class, especially the one which is part of the state, is one of the major impediments to Pakistan, becoming a welfare state where resources will be more evenly distributed across sectors and socio-economic classes. Sadly, the noble Jahangir Akhtar, who had the vision to link politician’s corruption with institutional corruption of the middle-class (who will eventually graduate to become the new elite), will remain alone. Economic deprivation is considered a lesser agenda than drone attacks and hence not worth protesting.The writer is author of Military Inc. ayesha.siddiqa@tribune.com.pk

Pakistan's "Anna" RJA Ends Fast, Will Tour Pakistan To Create Awareness

Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim meeting Raja Jahangir Akhtar on Tuesday afternoon

Nine days without food finally did the trick. Parliamentarians and leaders from the two biggest political parties in the country came to assure Raja Jahangir Akhtar ( RJA)  that an anti-corruption bill will be tabled by parliamentarians and that they will work to integrate the goal of making Pakistan a welfare state in their party manifestos.

Upon receiving this assurance, Akhtar broke his hunger strike with a glass of mango juice. Raja Jahangir Akhtar later vowed, “This is not the end. I am to go all over Pakistan to create awareness, so that one day, we can become a welfare state.”

The parliamentarians who gave him this assurance included PML-N MNA Anoosha Rehman, PPP’s Farah Naz Isphani, Senator Safdar Abbasi, Senator Lashkari Raeesani, National Party’s vice president Mir Hasil Bizenjo and PPP MNA Syed Akhundzada Chattan.
Earlier on Tuesday, former Supreme Court Judge Fakhruddin G Ebrahim came to show his support for Akhtar, telling him, “The people accept you as a good man. Use it to achieve long-term goals [for the betterment of the masses].”

A few weeks back, Justice (retd) Ebrahim, who in 1981 was one of just three judges to refuse to take a fresh oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order promulgated by former dictator General Ziaul Haq, made a noteworthy statement that to encourage transparency in the justice system, judges of the Supreme Court should be barred from holding any government jobs after their retirement.

Fanoos Gujjar, Dr Hassan Nasir and other members of the Awami Party, who have been managing the strike camp stayed by Akhtar’s side till the parliamentarians arrived. A crowd easily numbering in the hundreds assembled to show their support and witness the political milestone.

PPP Senator Lashkari Raisani, National Party Senator Hasil Bizenjo, PPP MNA Farahnaz Ispahani, PML-N MNA Anusha Rehman Khan, and estranged PPP leaders Aitazaz Ahsan Senator Safdar Abassi, Naheed Khan, and former PPP Senator Sardar Saleem were among the group.

Speaking before the announcement, Sarwar Bari told the crowd, “We must isolate the evil and push forward honest politicians.” He added that Pakistan cannot progress amid rampant corruption.

Farzana Bari delivered a fiery speech, saying, “We cannot accept a country where our children can’t even go to school. We cannot accept a country where our Pakistani brethren of different faiths and where our women are so abused. We have a right to live with dignity rather than humiliation.”

Sitting in the audience, Fahad Hasan, a telecom entrepreneur, called Akhtar’s protest “a great effort.”

Naheed Khan delivered a stinging point to her own party’s economic planners, saying, “The PPP of today doesn’t understand its own economic policies.” She called Akhtar “a man worthy of all our respect [for] always working for the downtrodden.”

Anusha Rehman revealed that parliament is currently mulling over an anti-corruption bill. Rehman cited an example of the level of corruption in state bodies, saying, “We are in a country where even the minutes of standing committee meetings get tampered with.” She added, “We should have been here on day one.”

Prior to Aitazaz Ahsan’s announcement of the end of the strike, a member of the crowd was so incensed by PPP MNA Akhunzada Chitan’s speech that he called him out for “spouting nonsense political rhetoric”.

The man, Mamoon Tariq Khan, an entrepreneur who at age 22 entered the Guinness Book of Records for speed-memorising abstractions, said that he was offended by the attempt to hijack a noble cause for political pandering.

Masood Ashraf Raja from The Pakistan Forum Adds:

Personally, RJA’s actions have given me a new kind of hope: I mean here is a 68-year-old citizen of Pakistan who has forced, through personal will and lateral solidarities, the Pakistani politicians to listen. And he accomplished this when one of the major TV networks (Geo TV) was shamelessly avoiding any mention of him in their so-called news.

A hunger strike is a performative act: it presupposes an audience of like-minded people and a means of communication to spread the message. In a way it is an act that introduces an anomaly within the discursive space of power, a sort of breakage: the kind that forces power to stop in the tracks of its normative drive. A hunger strike cannot be an end in itself but is always caught up with the future that it may unleash: Gandhi’s Satyagraha relied quite heavily on such public performances, but succeeded only because the press covered it.

What we saw in the last few weeks is unprecedented. Young people joined the movement and brought the tools of their time to fray: a Facebook page, a live stream, a blog. Countless webs of transnational solidarity woven together through techne but made possible because one man stood up and said: “enough!” This is the greatest lesson that I have learned: that one person can unleash so much power of good.

There were quite a few detractors: some venal members of a forum called The Defense Forum, some tired youth on Facebook asking silly questions without offering to do anything themselves, but then that is the nature of such actions: the nay-sayers, the fatalists, and the minions of power, when threatened, always resort to cowardly, malicious tactics or, like Geo TV, pretend to not notice at all.

But this has been an enlightening experience for all of us who were involved and I am specially grateful to my friend from Pakistan (whose name I cannot mention) for providing us all the information that we needed.


My thanks to Raja Jahangir Akhtar for putting his life on the line for a just cause: Thank you from our heart and may you live long and continue working for Pakistan.

To our politicians: beware, we are watching what you do to OUR country and our patience is not endless!

Pakistan's Anna On Hunger Strike: Strike to end today if corruption bill is introduced in the parliament!!

It has been learned from confidential reliable sources that Raja Jahangir Akhtar (RJA) is likely to call off his hunger strike today subject to acceptance by majority of parliamentarians in black in white that they will absolutely commit themselves towards tabling of a Corruption Bill in the parliament on priority basis.

Further, it is expected that a consortium of senior parliamentarians led by Mir Hasil Bizenjo would meet RJA at his hunger strike camp  to assure him that his demand for eradication of corruption in the country would be supported wholeheartedly. The parliamentarians should also mull over the idea of turning Pakistan into a welfare state but since it requires a paradigm shift in the ideology of the masses hence it would probably be resolved to pursue this cause in a well planned manner.

Earlier, medical conditions of RJA became noticeably better due to medical intervention by his physician yesterday evening. Who would have thought that a little known social activist from a least expected platform and less active landscape would stir the entire political scene of the country single-handedly and give new hope to the silent revolution that is taking place in the minds of the enlightened Pakistanis who, prior to this strike, had otherwise thought it to be a difficult thing to accomplish in such a short duration of time. RJA and his team members, who believe that it was just the first step to mark beginning of a long struggle that would change the destiny of the nation, should be commended for this successful initiative. The response from public and social activists has been remarkable which surely has conveyed a message to the political parties to put their act in order before it would be too late.

Little support for Akhtar as strike enters fifth day

Akhtar’s blood sugar dropped to 70mmol/l and he has shown signs of forgetfulness.

ISLAMABAD: 

As Raja Jahangir’s hunger strike against corruption entered its fifth day on Friday, eminent historian Mubarak Ali noted in a press release that Pakistan is facing challenges from corruption, lawlessness, terrorism, insecurity of life and property and increasing army expenditure, which deprives the common people of their basic rights.

The resources that should be spent on the provision of education and health facilities to the people of Pakistan are not being utilised on these sectors due to heavy expenditures on the military and prevailing corruption, the press release said.

Ali closed by saying that this protest comes at a time when our political parties and leaders are engaged in personal infighting and have shown little regard for public problems and deprivation, leaving the people they represent at the mercy of the elements.

Although Akthar’s blood sugar dropped 70 mmol/l on Thursday, he continued his strike on Friday and was in good spirits, interacting with a number of visitors and supporters at his camp. However, he has been forgetful, according to his doctor and some of his supporters, which is likely linked with his lack of food intake.

Around 30 members of Pakistan Youth Forum from different area of Pakistan arrived to show their support and a silent protest was also organised in Super Market, across the road from the protest camp, where supporters of the cause held a large banner and placards calling for the acceptance of Akhtar’s demands in their entirety.

Whole Pak Govt.Corrupt: Pakistan's Anna Hazare " Raja"

 India and Pakistan both share the dubious distinction of suffering from the debilitating problem of corruption. This menace has not only crippled Pakistan's economy but also hampered all kinds of developmental activities in the country.

India recently witnessed a massive movement against corruption, led by activist Anna Hazare and supported by thousands of Indians.

In sharp contrast, Pakistan's citizens are currently in a state of despair about the scourge of corruption, says anti-graft activist Raja Jahangir Akhtar.

Influenced by Hazare's fight against corruption, the 68-year-old social activist has also started an anti-corruption movement in Pakistan. He has declared a war on graft and has been on an indefinite hunger strike since Monday in Islamabad.

In an interview , Raja Jahangir says that he is determined to mobilise the masses against corruption.

What is the aim of your movement?

I have waged a battle for the past 48 years to bring about positive changes to the poor economic situation in Pakistan. For my candid views on the country's economy, I was put behind bars many times. A military court even awarded me a jail term of one year, but I never surrendered and continued my struggle.

Although fighting corruption was not my first priority, I decided to bring an end the burgeoning corruption in Pakistan after witnessing the successful anti-graft movement led by Indian social activist Anne Hazare.

Do you think the present political leadership is responsible for the economic crisis?

I am totally disappointed about Pakistan's acute economic crisis. The pathetic and insensitive attitude of the political leadership about this grave economic situation is more disappointing. I have kicked off the movement as a protest against the present political leadership.

Why has corruption flourished so much in Pakistan?

Corruption is bound to flourish in a culture that encourages the display of affluence without any regard about how the wealth has been obtained. Lack of accountability plays a crucial role in the promotion of bribery and resistance to any form of reform.

How long will you continue your hunger strike and how hopeful are you about the success of your struggle?

We are striving to pass an anti-corruption law in Parliament. I am currently on a hunger strike and soon other people will also join me. If the government doesn't pay heed to our demand of fighting corruption, I will continue the hunger strike until my death. It is a very difficult job to mobilise Pakistan's masses but I am hopeful that one day they will support me.

Anne Hazare mobilised thousands of people in India while your supporters are few; what do you think is the reason for this?

In Pakistan, people live in a state of despair as they believe that no one can change the current situation. They have lost all hope about corruption ever being eradicated. The people of India don't think that corruption has gone beyond control and corrupt elements can't be eliminated. That's why they are supporting Anna Hazare.

At the same time, the Indian Parliament understood their sentiments and adopted a resolution. But in Pakistan, there is no section of the administration untouched by the corruption, so there is no consensus on the accountability bill.

Is there any solution to resolve the current economic crisis of Pakistan?

My suggestion is that we can salvage our economy by cutting down the size of our army, as we don't have any external threats at the moment. Another way to meet our economic challenges is to end our confrontations with India and Afghanistan.