Anwar was born into a Bhakral Rajput family of Darkali Sher Shahi a village, near Kallar Syedan (Rawlpindi district). Anwar was a fiery student leader in the sixties and later joined the Pakistan Peoples Party. Anwar was made an Officer on Special Duty for Students and Labour and never held a Ministerial post in Z A Bhutto's government (1971—1977). Anwar escaped to Afghanistan after Bhutto was toppled by a right-wing military coup led by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

In Kabul, Anwar joined Bhutto's elder son, Murtaza Bhutto, and formed Al-Zulfiqar, a leftist insurgency and terrorist organization committed to topple the Zia dictatorship.

Raja Anwar had a falling with Murtaza over the later's controversial terror tactics and wanted to return to Pakistan and help Murtaza's sister, Benazir Bhutto's political struggle against Zia.

Anwar was then admitted to a Kabul jail by the Soviet-backed Afghan government on the request of Murtaza but was released in 1985 after Murtaza shifted his operations to Syria.

Unable to return to Pakistan due to his connections with Al-Zulfiqar, Anwar found political asylum in Germany where he lived until the assassination of Zia-ul-Haq in 1988. His 1988 book "The Tragedy of Afghanistan" is considered a classic early study of the Afghan crisis before and during the Soviet occupation of that country.

Anwar currently lives in Pakistan and writes for various progressive Urdu newspapers and has written a total of seven books in Urdu and English.

Anwar is currently working as chairman chief minister's taskforce on elementary education as well as chairman punjab education foundation and looks after the school education reforms.