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
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
Hum Us Ke Pasban Hain, Who Pasban Humara
Maghrib Ki Wadiyon
Mein Goonji Azan Humari
Thamta Na Tha Kisi Se Seel-e-Rawan Humara
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. Is naam say hai baaqi, aaram-e-jahan hamara
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.
Comments
Post a Comment