But perhaps his greatest achievement is that he was requested by Muhammad Ali Jinnah to pen Pakistan’s first national anthem. This is a documented fact, recent history and not open to debate, unlike other such or similar ideas like “Jinnah was a drinker” or “Jinnah was secular” or even “Jinnah and Nehru betrayed Gandhi”. Jinnah wanted a Hindu to come up with Pakistan’s anthem. That is really strange, considering how Pakistan has always been touted as a safe haven for Muslims escaping persecution from Hindu (or Hindutva) extremists. But that is not the premise of this article.

What I intend to highlight is how Pakistan’s youth (including myself) is largely unaware of this and other facts. Facts that paint a completely different picture from the Pakistan of today. Then there are the zealots who deny Jinnah’s apparent secularism and argue in favor of an Islamic state based on their biased interpretation of a history that has been drenched in green paint. I had never heard of the name of Jagannath Azad until I was linked by a friend to this Hindu Times article by Beena Sarwar. I remember having heated discussions on forums about Jinnah’s desire for a secular and modern state. My opponents vehemently denied this speech and called it a ‘Hindu fabrication designed to weaken the hearts of Muslims and make Pakistan an easy target for India’. It was clear that my opponents hadn’t bothered to even read the speech. Had they, they would have come across the following lines that stand as a solid and indisputable testament to Jinnah’s secularism:

[...]you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would 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.

Jinnah wanted post-colonial India to be a functional democratic state in every regard, as opposed to what I believe were Gandhi’s dreams of a self governing anarchist psuedo-state. Gandhi wanted an India without an underlying government. Gandhi’s idealism had no place in the world of 1947, much less today. Why, when there is so much documentary evidence to the contrary, do we have schoolchildren identifying Pakistan as an Islamic state founded for the sole purpose of providing for Muslims and championing Islam in the face of the rest of the world? Where are Jinnah’s promised equal rights for all minorities? Why are we sitting and watching like deaf, dumb and blind idiots as Islamists are gaining ground within our government? Why are we, as a nation, generally apathetic to Taliban militants using our soil for their dirty bloodwork? Why are we letting feudalism live? Why are uncouth and uneducated ‘leaders’ driving our nation deeper and deeper into social, cultural and economic turmoil with our vote?

I, for one, am tired of playing the devil’s advocate. Bring out the zealots and feudal lords and extremists and burn them at the stake. Purge this disease from our land. Document it extensively so that generations will know. Set an example for other cultures. The great culling. The curing of Pakistan.

As for anthems, why was Hafeez Jalandri’s Pak Sar Zameen even needed, when Jinnah had already got us one, with the aid of Jagannath. Why was there a need to replace Jagannath’s anthem with Hafeez Jalandri’s? I can not come to a conclusion without first reading Jagannath’s anthem. I have only been able to find a short excerpt:

Aey sarzameen-i-pak
Zarrey terey hein aaj sitaron sey tabnak
Roshan heh kehkashan sey kahin aaj teri khak.
(”Oh land of Pakistan, each particle of yours is being illuminated by stars.
Even your dust has been brightened like a rainbow”)

Hafiz Jalandri’s Pak Sar Zamin is a really well written piece with subtle references to a deity and faith in general (”Marqaz e Yaqin” and “Saya e Khuda e Zuljalal”). The references are too vague to be deemed pro-Islam in any way, but are definitely not secular.

As I stated earlier, it is not possible to draw a conclusion without thorough research into the matter and a reading of Jagannath’s original. But something just doesn’t seem right. Perhaps Jagannath’s anthem embodied Jinnah’s August 11 speech, and it was later felt that a slightly less secular one was needed? One with subtle references to ‘faith’ and ‘the almighty’? So maybe, in these times of MMAs and Sharia`ah movements and unconstitutionally persecuted minorities, we should adopt a more overt religious chant as our anthem. Maybe one with great praise for the almighty and hatred towards minorities, replete with subtle undertones of extremism and Islamofascism.

“Zarrey terey hain aaj sitaaron sey tabnak” he wrote. I wonder what his sentiments were in his later years.

I haven’t blogged in ages really. This looks like it will be much fun. Just set up wordpress and 2.8 is awesome. Everything gets done automagically.

Now for some content…

[to be continued]