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Pakistan National Anthem : The One Quaid Approved

cybertron

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I'm not sure if this has been posted earlier... but is a new find for me ...


The lines are just awe inspiring and beautiful. Please Discuss..
 
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tarana.jpg

Transliteration and translation follow, by people who are coincidentally both Lahoris too, like Azad
Aye sar zameen-i-Pak (transliteration by Asad Jamal)

Zare tere hain aaj sitaron se tabnak
Roshan hai kehkashan se kahin aaj teri khak
Tundi-e-hasdan pe ghalib hai tera swaak
Daman wo sil gaya hai jo tha mudaton se chaak
Aye sar zameen-i-Pak!


Ab apne azm ko hai naya rasta pasand
Apna watan hai aaj zamane main sar buland
Pohncha sake ga is ko na koi bhi ab gazand
Apna alm a hai chand sitaron se bhi buland
Ab ham ko dekhtey hain atarad hon ya samaak
Aye sar zameen-i-Pak!


Utra hai imtehan main watan aaj kamyab
Ab huriat ki zulf nahin mahiv-e-paich-o-taab
Daulat hai apne mulk ki be had-o-be hisaab
Hon ge ham aap mulk ki daulat se faiz yab
Maghrib se hum ko khauf na mashriq se hum ko baak
Aye sar zameen-i-Pak!


Apne watan ka aaj badalne laga nizam
apne watan main aaj nahin hai koi ghulam
apna watan hai rah-e-taraqi pe tez gam
azad, bamurad jawan bakht shad kaam
ab itr bez hain jo hawain thin zehr naak
Aye sar zameen-i-Pak!


Zare tere hain aaj sitaron se tabnak
Roshan hai kehkashan se kahin aaj teri khak
Aye sar zameen-i-Pak!


O, Land of the Pure (translated by Shoaib Mir)

O, Land of the Pure

The grains of your soil are glowing today
Brighter than the stars and the galaxy
Awe-struck is the enemy by your will-power
Open wounds are sewn, we’ve found a cure
O, Land of the Pure…

New paths of progress, we resolve to tread
Proudly, our nation stands with a high head
Our flag is aflutter above the moon and the stars
As planets look up to us be it Mercury or Mars
No harm will now come from anywhere, for sure
O, Land of the Pure…

The nation has tasted success at last
Now freedom struggle is a thing of the past
The wealth of our country knows no bounds
For us are its benefits and bounty all around
Of East and West, we have no fear
O, Land of the Pure…

Change has become the order of the day
No-one is a slave in the nation today
On the road to progress, we’re swiftly going along
Independent and fortunate, happy as a song
Gloomy winds are gone, sweet freedom’s in the air
O, Land of the Pure…

The grains of your soil are glowing today
Brighter than the stars and the Milky Way

Translator’s Note: I feel privileged to have translated this historic document that I suspect is not even part of our national archives. It’s as if I have forged a personal link with the Quaid e Azam! Not literal, my translation – certainly not the best one can have – is an honest attempt to capture the spirit of the original text which is in rich Urdu/Persian idiom. I thought it was necessary to use my creative license to rhyme in order to match the beauty and grandeur of the original text the best I could — Shoaib Mir.
 
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The present National Anthem isn't in any way worse than the first Anthem. I've listened to it and it's beautiful, albeit a bit too Persianized.
 
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The present National Anthem isn't in any way worse than the first Anthem. I've listened to it and it's beautiful, albeit a bit too Persianized.

The difference being " The first one was written by a Hindu poet , Jagan Nath Azad , who was asked by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself to write Pakistan’s first anthem and it was in our national language"

After the death of Jinnah , conservatives had their chance . They had a problem with it ; "How could a Hindu write national anthem of Islamic Pakistan" ?? . So they got it replaced with a more "passionate" one
 
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The difference being " The first one was written by a Hindu poet , Jagan Nath Azad , who was asked by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself to write Pakistan’s first anthem and it was in our national language"

After the death of Jinnah , conservatives had their chance . They had a problem with it ; "How could a Hindu write national anthem of Islamic Pakistan" ?? . So they got it replaced with a more "passionate" one

Is there some veritable proof of this ?
 
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The difference being " The first one was written by a Hindu poet , Jagan Nath Azad , who was asked by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself to write Pakistan’s first anthem and it was in our national language"

After the death of Jinnah , conservatives had their chance . They had a problem with it ; "How could a Hindu write national anthem of Islamic Pakistan" ?? .

It would have been a really good symbolic gesture to show the World that Pakistan wasn't a fundamentalist/puritanical State.
 
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Pakistan’s first national anthem[edit]
“Not many people know that, while still in the land of his birth, Azad sahib wrote Tarana-e-Pakistan at the behest of the people with authority in Pakistan” (Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s office?), says Dr Khaliq Anjum (author and General Secretary, Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu Hind) in his foreword to “Jagan Nath Azad – Hayat Aur Adabi Khidmaat” (page 10) published in 1993.[14] He continues, “What can be a greater honour, particularly for a non-Muslim, than having his Tarana broadcast from Radio Lahore immediately after the announcement of Pakistan’s establishment on the night of 14 August 1947?”

Luv Puri, an award-winning Indian journalist, interviewed Azad shortly before his demise. Reported in the Milli Gazette of 16–31 August 2004 and the Hindu of 19 June 2005,[15] part of the interview claiming that “A Hindu wrote Pakistan's first national anthem” and that, “Jinnah got Urdu-knowing Jagannath Azad to write the song” initiated a controversy in the academic circles of Pakistan.

The campaign to reinstate Azad’s Tarana-e-Pakistan as Pakistan's national anthem led by writer-activist Beena Sarwar[16]was matched by denials of the Tarana[17] ever being the National Anthem of Pakistan by prominent historians Dr. Safdar Mahmood and Aqeel Abbas Jafri (author of Pakistan Chronicle).

Azad himself refers to hearing his Tarana-e-Pakistan being broadcast from Radio Lahore on the night of 14 August 1947 in his book “Ankhen Tarastiyan Hain" published in 1981[18] and in “Hayat-e-Mehroom” published in 1987[19] he wrote:

“I was still in Lahore, living in my house in Ramnagar with the intention of never leaving Lahore. In those days Pakistan probably had only two radio stations: one in Lahore and the other in Peshawar. When Radio Pakistan (Lahore) made the announcement of the founding of Pakistan that night, it was followed by a broadcast of my National Anthem ‘Zarre tere hein aaj sitaaron se taabnaak, Ai sarzameen-e-Pak’. The other side of this image is that on the next day, 15 August 1947 – when India was celebrating its independence – Hafeez Jalandhari’s anthem ‘Ai watan, Ai India, Ai Bharat, Ai Hindustan’ was broadcast by All India Radio (Delhi)."

Adil Najam, a well-known blogger, posted extracts from Azad’s speeches on his blog: “I asked my friends why Jinnah sahib wanted me to write the anthem. They said Qaid-e-Azam wanted the anthem to be written by an Urdu-knowing Hindu.”

“Through this, I believe Jinnah sahib wanted to sow the roots of secularism in Pakistan,” read a post that quoted Azad in an interview with Luv Puri.

Jagan Nath Azad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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Bring back Jagannath Azad’s Pakistan anthem
by beenasarwar

The death in custody of another ‘blasphemy accused’ once again highlights what many of us have long been stressing: a need to repeal the ‘blasphemy laws’, train the police force, revise the education curriculum to remove the hate-mongering, and enforce law and order with a firm hand.

Below, my article on Pakistan’s first national anthem by Jagan Nath Azad (slightly abbreviated version published today in Dawn ‘Another time, another anthem’)


Prof. Jagan Nath Azad. Photo courtesy: Chander K. Azad, Jammu

Beena Sarwar

As children we learnt that Pakistan didn’t have a national anthem until the 1950s. My journalist uncle Zawwar Hasan used to tell us of a reporter friend who visited China in the early 1950s. Asked about Pakistan’s national anthem, he sang the nonsensical ‘laralapa laralapa’.

If these journalists were unaware that Pakistan had a national anthem — commissioned and approved in 1947 by by no less a person than the country’s founder and first Governor General, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, long before Hafeez Jullandri’s Persianised lyrics were adopted as the anthem in 1954 – ordinary citizens may be forgiven for their ignorance.

The lyricist of the first national anthem was the poet Jagannath Azad, son of the renowned poet Tilok Chand Mehroom (who won accolades for his rendering of naat at mushairas). Born in Isa Khel (Mianwali), Jagannath Azad was working in Lahore when Mr Jinnah commissioned him for this task just three days before Independence. He complied, Mr Jinnah approved the lyrics, and the anthem went on air on Radio Pakistan the day Pakistan was born. Some Pakistanis still remember hearing it, like Zaheer A. Kidvai, then seven years old, who mentioned it on his blog Windmills of my mind – ‘A Tale of Two Anthems’, May 03, 2009. Those who came after 1948 have no memory of it.

My own introduction to it was recent, through an unexpected resource. Flying to Karachi from Lahore, I came upon an article on the history of Pakistan’s flag and national anthem in PIA’s monthly ‘Hamsafar‘ magazine (‘Pride of Pakistan’, by Khushboo Aziz, August issue).

“Quaid-e-Azam being the visionary that he was knew an anthem would also be needed, not only to be used in official capacity but inspire patriotism in the nation. Since he was secular-minded, enlightened, and although very patriotic but not in the least petty Jinnah commissioned a Hindu, Lahore-based writer Jagan Nath Azad three days before independence to write a national anthem for Pakistan. Jagan Nath submitted these lyrics:

Ae sarzameene paak
Zarray teray haen aaj sitaaron se taabnaak
Roshan hai kehkashaan se kaheen aaj teri khaak
Ae sarzameene paak.”
(“Oh land of Pakistan, the stars themselves illuminate each particle of yours/Rainbows brighten your very dust”)

As Jaswant Singh’s forthcoming book on Mr Jinnah created ripples in mid-August,The Kashmir Times, Jammu, published a short piece, ‘A Hindu wrote Pakistan’s first national anthem – How Jinnah got Urdu-knowing Jagannath Azad to write the song’(Aug 21, 2009). The reproduction of a front-page report by Luv Puri in The Hindu (Jun 19, 2005), it drew on Puri’s interview of Azad in Jammu city days before his death. Talking to Puri, Azad recalled how Jinnah asked him to write Pakistan’s national anthem. In the interview, headlined ‘My last wish is to write a song of peace for both India & Pakistan: Azad’, he said he was in Lahore working in a literary newspaper “when mayhem had struck” the entire country (Special Report by Luv Puri,Milli Gazette, New Delhi, Aug 16-31, 2004).

“All my relatives had left for India and for me to think of leaving Lahore was painful… My Muslim friends requested me to stay on and took responsibility of my safety. On the morning of August 9, 1947, there was a message from Pakistan’s first Governor-General, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It was through a friend working in Radio Lahore who called me to his office. He told me ‘Quaid-e-Azam wants you to write a national anthem for Pakistan.’

“I told them it would be difficult to pen it in five days and my friend pleaded that as the request has come from the tallest leader of Pakistan, I should consider his request. On much persistence, I agreed.”

Why him? Azad felt that the answer lay in Jinnah’s speech of Aug 11, 1947, stating that if everyone saw themselves “first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations…in the course of time, Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”

“Even I was surprised when my colleagues in Radio Pakistan, Lahore approached me,” recalled Azad. “…They confided in me that ‘Quaid-e-Azam wanted the anthem to be written by an Urdu-knowing Hindu.’ Through this, I believe Jinnah Sahib wanted to sow the roots of secularism in a Pakistan where intolerance had no place.”

Mr Jinnah approved Azad’s lyrics within hours, and the anthem was broadcast on Radio Pakistan, Karachi (then the capital of Pakistan).

The Hamsafar writer terms it “the anthem for Pakistan’s Muslims” — apparently forgetting about the country’s non-Muslim citizens. Even after the forced migrations on either side, West Pakistan still had some 10 per cent, and East Pakistan about 25 percent non-Muslims – symbolised by the white stripe in Pakistan’s flag.

Increasing insecurity forced Azad to migrate to Delhi in mid-September 1947. He returned to Lahore in October, says his son Chander K. Azad in an email to this writer. “However, his friends advised him against staying as they found it difficult to keep him safe… He returned to Delhi with a refugee party.”

Azad had a distinguished career in India – eminent Urdu journalist, authority on Allama Iqbal (in the preface of his last manuscript, unpublished, ‘Roodad-e-Iqbal’ he wrote immodestly, “anything on Iqbal after this has no meaning”), author of over 70 books, government servant (retired in 1997), and recipient of numerous awards and honours (See his son Chander K. Azad’s email of Sept 6 on this blog.)

However, his lyrics survived in Pakistani barely six months beyond Mr Jinnah’s death in September 1948. “The people and the Constitutional bodies of the country wanted to have a more patriotic and more passionate national anthem that depicted their values and identity to the world,” explains the Hamsafar article (loaded ideological terminology aside, one never read about the Hindu poet Azad’s contribution in any official literature before, ‘enlightened moderation’ notwithstanding.)

The National Anthem Committee (NAC), formed in December 1948, took two years to finalise a new anthem. After the Shah of Iran’s impending visit in 1950 made the decision imperative, NAC member Hafeez Jallandri’s poem was chosen from among 723 submissions.

The anthem commissioned by Mr Jinnah was just one of his legacies that his successors swept aside, along with the principles he stressed in his address to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947 — meant to be his political will and testament according to his official biographer Hector Bolitho (Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, John Murray, London, 1954).

Pakistan’s inherited problems, he said included the maintenance of law and order (the State must fully protect “the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects”), the “curse” of bribery and corruption, the “monster” of black-marketing, and the “great evil” of nepotism. Since Partition had happened, he said, we must “concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor.”

This speech, literally censored by “hidden hands” as Zamir Niazi documents in Press in Chains (1986), also contains Mr Jinnah’s famous lines about the “fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State”,where religious identity becomes secondary and where religion, caste or creed “has nothing to do with the business of the State…”

A month after his death, the Safety Act Ordinance of 1948, providing for detention without trial – the draft of which Jinnah had in March angrily dismissed as a “black law” – was passed. The following March, the Constituent Assembly passed the ‘Objectives Resolution’ that laid the basis for recognising Pakistan as a state based on an ideology.

In all these deviations from Mr Jinnah’s vision, perhaps discarding Azad’s poem appears miniscule. But it is important for its symbolism. It must be restored and given a place of honour, at least as a national song our children can learn – after all, Indian children learn Iqbal’s ‘Saarey jehan se accha’. Such symbolism is necessary if we are to claim the political spaces for resurrecting Mr Jinnah’s vision about a nation where religion, caste or creed “has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
 
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Pakistan’s first national anthem[edit]
“Not many people know that, while still in the land of his birth, Azad sahib wrote Tarana-e-Pakistan at the behest of the people with authority in Pakistan” (Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s office?), says Dr Khaliq Anjum (author and General Secretary, Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu Hind) in his foreword to “Jagan Nath Azad – Hayat Aur Adabi Khidmaat” (page 10) published in 1993.[14] He continues, “What can be a greater honour, particularly for a non-Muslim, than having his Tarana broadcast from Radio Lahore immediately after the announcement of Pakistan’s establishment on the night of 14 August 1947?”

Luv Puri, an award-winning Indian journalist, interviewed Azad shortly before his demise. Reported in the Milli Gazette of 16–31 August 2004 and the Hindu of 19 June 2005,[15] part of the interview claiming that “A Hindu wrote Pakistan's first national anthem” and that, “Jinnah got Urdu-knowing Jagannath Azad to write the song” initiated a controversy in the academic circles of Pakistan.

The campaign to reinstate Azad’s Tarana-e-Pakistan as Pakistan's national anthem led by writer-activist Beena Sarwar[16]was matched by denials of the Tarana[17] ever being the National Anthem of Pakistan by prominent historians Dr. Safdar Mahmood and Aqeel Abbas Jafri (author of Pakistan Chronicle).

Azad himself refers to hearing his Tarana-e-Pakistan being broadcast from Radio Lahore on the night of 14 August 1947 in his book “Ankhen Tarastiyan Hain" published in 1981[18] and in “Hayat-e-Mehroom” published in 1987[19] he wrote:

“I was still in Lahore, living in my house in Ramnagar with the intention of never leaving Lahore. In those days Pakistan probably had only two radio stations: one in Lahore and the other in Peshawar. When Radio Pakistan (Lahore) made the announcement of the founding of Pakistan that night, it was followed by a broadcast of my National Anthem ‘Zarre tere hein aaj sitaaron se taabnaak, Ai sarzameen-e-Pak’. The other side of this image is that on the next day, 15 August 1947 – when India was celebrating its independence – Hafeez Jalandhari’s anthem ‘Ai watan, Ai India, Ai Bharat, Ai Hindustan’ was broadcast by All India Radio (Delhi)."

Adil Najam, a well-known blogger, posted extracts from Azad’s speeches on his blog: “I asked my friends why Jinnah sahib wanted me to write the anthem. They said Qaid-e-Azam wanted the anthem to be written by an Urdu-knowing Hindu.”

“Through this, I believe Jinnah sahib wanted to sow the roots of secularism in Pakistan,” read a post that quoted Azad in an interview with Luv Puri.

Jagan Nath Azad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My God - Thats the evidence; a book written in the '90s, a Journalist having interviewed Azad in the '00s & a Blogger !

Even if we could discount the Quaid's lack of fluency in Urdu; surely some 'shred' of evidence more than 'hearsay' would be the prerequisite to believe anything !

What about some Working Paper of the Muslim League ?

Perhaps an Official Document ?

Even a Letter from the Quaid to Azad ?

Some News-excerpt from the '40s till Quaid's Death ever mentioning anything of the sort ?

If nothing else then maybe even a mention in some of the more Authoritative Biographies of the Quaid or those Octagenarians who were around that time ?

Nothing....nothing at all ?
 
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If nothing else then maybe even a mention in some of the more Authoritative Biographies of the Quaid or those Octagenarians who were around that time ?
Nothing....nothing at all ?


  1. ^ "Jagan Nāth Āzād, ḥayāt aur adabī k̲h̲idmāt (Book, 1993)". [WorldCat.org]. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
  2. Jump up^ "Front Page : A Hindu wrote Pakistan's first national anthem". The Hindu. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
  3. Jump up^ "Bring back Jagannath Azad’s Pakistan anthem « Journeys to democracy". Beenasarwar.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
  4. Jump up^ "Pakistan’s first ‘tarana’, by Jagannath Azad « Journeys to democracy". Beenasarwar.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
  5. Jump up^ Jagan Nath Azad. "Ankhen Tarastiyan Hain". Open Library. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
  6. Jump up^ Jagan Nath Azad. "Hayat-i-Mehroom". Open Library. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
The anthem commissioned by Mr Jinnah was just one of his legacies that his successors swept aside, along with the principles he stressed in his address to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947 — meant to be his political will and testament according to his official biographer Hector Bolitho (Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, John Murray, London, 1954).

Is it confirmed or what? If tht was the National Anthem our Great Father Approved than Lanat on the turd who replaced it..
 
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