Some more on “Hindi hain hum…..”

In  a recent regional conference of the Society for Communal Harmony at Lucknow on 23th November, 2015, which was organized by my uncle, Mr. Chandra Bhal Tripathi, a request was made to Lucknow University to send some girl students to sing 'Sare jahaan se achchha Hindostan hamara' at the beginning and the national anthem at the end of the conference. We were surprised when only one girl turned up and said that she had been asked to sing Vande Mataram at the beginning. I asked her if she could sing 'Saare jahan se achchha....'.  She gladly agreed and sang the poem. Later a gentleman observed that this poem should not be sung at any public function as Iqbal, the poet, had turned a Pakistani and modified his famous poem praising Pakistan instead of Hindostan.

My uncle told me that for him it was enough that in his childhood the two most popular patriotic songs were 'Sare jahan se achchha....' and  'Vijayee vishwa tiranga pyara, jhanda ooncha rahe hamara'  by Parshad ji, a primary school teacher of Kanpur.

But he wished to know the truth about this gentleman’s observation.

What this gentleman said is a half truth.

Iqbal did not amend his great "Sare jahan se achcha...." song, which we call as Tarana-e-Hindi.  This patriotic song is very musical and simple but it evoked great sentiments in glorification of Hindostan, or undivided India and Hindis, its people. It extols the multi-ethnic and multi-religious ethos of India and attempts to build a common national identity in those early days of freedom struggle.

In subsequent years, Iqbal's world view changed dramatically.  He argued  that the Muslim Umma is an identity which supersedes the national identity and the Muslim community should recognize this, giving up any nationalistic world view. He delivered the famous Allahabad lecture in favour of an exclusive homeland for Muslims, outside the Indian union. He was the one coined the term Pakistan (from Punjab, Afghan, Kashmir, Baluchistan and so on...I don't know how he fitted Sindh and Bengal in it..... I'm sure Bengal was not even seriously there on the minds of ideologues of Pakistan and two-nation theory). This was circa 1930 and it is said  that he was the one who convinced Jinnah in late 1930s to stop bargaining with Congress and demand Pakistan.

In the early days of this transformation, he wrote another song in the same meter and rhyme scheme as Tarana-e-Hindi and called it Tarana-e-Milli.  Sample it:

Cheen-o-Arab     Humara,    Hindostan         Humara
Muslim Hain Hum, Watan Hai Sara Jahan Humara

Dunya Ke Butkadon Mein Pehla Woh Ghar Khuda Ka
Hum Us   Ke Pasban Hain,    Who   Pasban    Humara

Maghrib   Ki   Wadiyon   Mein   Goonji   Azan  Humari
Thamta   Na   Tha  Kisi Se    Seel-e-Rawan   Humara

(perhaps referring to Islamic triumphs in Spain and Central Europe)

Salar-e-Karwan   hai    Meer-e-Hijaaz  (PBUH)  apna
Is    naam  say  hai baaqi,      aaram-e-jahan hamara

   Now, you can make your own judgement.

But he indeed was the Mufakkir-e-Pakistan (The Thinker of Pakistan) or  Musawwar-e-Pakistan (Artist of Pakistan) and Hakeem-ul-Ummat (The Sage of the Ummah).

But none of this takes away the beauty of Tarana-e-Hindi, which as far as I know, he had never forsaken or revised.

 

He just moved on.