Raja Jahangir Akhtar

"LandepNews"

Raja Jahangir Akhtar

Anna Hazare’s anti-graft protest in India has entered the eighth day as the government is trying to rush things up so that the Lokpal Bill be debated and approved in the parliament as soon as possible. The protest the 74-year-old leader has brought tens of thousands Indians into the streets of the country, happy to march with him, and to support the cause of diminishing corruption in India.

But the echo was felt not only within the Indian borders. A businessman in Pakistan, Raja Jahangir Akhtar, 68, announced that he would soon commence fasting unto death in Pakistan, protesting the corruption in his country and the militarization of South Asia.

Akhtar hopes that his protest will lead to the introduction of an anti-corruption bill similar to the one in India, following the lines of the Lokpal law.

The Pakistani businessman said that he had fought against corruption in his country in the past but that he had been discouraged and abandoned the fight. But seeing Hazare fighting in India has given him renewed hopes that the battle can be won, and so he would resume protests the Indian way.

Akhtar, owner of a shop in Islamabad’s Super Market, and affiliated with the ruling party, Pakistan People’s Party, will begin his fasting on September 12, as soon as the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the ritual fast in Islam, ends.

He said he hoped that the people would support him, especially the Socialist, and is counting on the internet to spread his message. He is known for supporting anti-corruption proposals in the past, such as rent control in the capital, but he contended that the results were minimum and that the officials did nothing to address the problem of corruption in the country, which is why he hopes to create a mass reaction the size of the one created by Hazare.

Graft, rent control, inflation and demilitarization of the country are the topics Akhtar is ready to propose the public in Pakistan, hoping that their reaction to them would be a positive one, that is they will support his cause.

He proposes that the military get out of the populated areas and buy lands outside towns, where they can build their military compounds.

Akhtar considers that India and Pakistan should push toward bringing their relations back to what they were before the war between 1947 and 1965 made a lot of ties snap between the two countries.

Anna Hazare

He said that the enmity should be over as soon as possible and the borders be made soft, so that the people in Pakistan and India could cooperate like they used to. He added that the borders should not be erased, so that the Pakistanis don’t have the impression that India is trying to annex their country.

Meanwhile, in India, Hazare’s protest has determined the government to call on Wednesday all parties to debate the Lokpal bill in hopes that this would end the fast launched by Hazare and embraced by tens of thousands.

Yet, with all the efforts made by the government, on Wednesday, Anna Hazare spoke to his followers for 20 minutes, with bitterness in his voice, saying that so far the governmental actions were not good, and that he was committed to continuing his protest at any cost, including death, until the government accepted the Lokpal Bill in the formulation that would render all dignitaries under the ambit of the ombudsman.

He said that the governmental agent who wanted to tone down his movement are all corrupted, and called for the continuation of protests.

It remains to be seen whether Akhtar’s protest would be so carefully received by the Pakistani society, which shares the values of the Islamic culture and may not be inclined to show so much concern to this kind of protest, that would remind so strikingly of neighboring India.

On the other hand, Akhtar may know his people best, and he may know whether his action stands a chance before he undertakes it.

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