Pakistan's first National Anthem

[dk33]

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We should have kept the old anthem, to give thanks to the hindus and other minorities of Pakistan for always supporting us.

I like the one we have right now just fine - minorities don't need thanks through the selection of an anthem, they need thanks, as do all Pakistanis, through a nation that offers opportunity, justice and equality.

[Muradk]

Interesting Article all new to me, I can say this when my teacher in Aitchison asked me who wrote the National Anthem I said the Principal.

[warlock21]

Interesting Article all new to me, I can say this when my teacher in Aitchison asked me who wrote the National Anthem I said the Principal.

u was better... then singing "laralapa laralapa"

[UmairP]

But the language which you guys use and we use is almost 80% same. the only diffrence is you write in urdu we write in devnagari. and when we try to make the same sentence in english it is just the replacement of alphabates. Like when i say "What" in hindi then i will write "Kya" and Pakistani will write "Kia"

But it is still hard to.............

Thats no difference... often people here use Kia as kya or vice versa. There is no difference in the way of speaking. Believe me, we understand every thing that is said in a Bolloywood Movie but cant understand the news channels (star news) and National Geographic Hindi.

I think you can understand the difference between the two languages now. Bollywood doesn't use much Sanskrit but Star News and National Geographic do.

[Skeptic]

Thats no difference... often people here use Kia as kya or vice versa. There is no difference in the way of speaking. Believe me, we understand every thing that is said in a Bolloywood Movie but cant understand the news channels (star news) and National Geographic Hindi.

I think you can understand the difference between the two languages now. Bollywood doesn't use much Sanskrit but Star News and National Geographic do.

And believe you me, many Hindi speaking Indians too find them hard to follow, specially when they translate technical term in Hindi.

@ topic:

I think this would be again a tokenized gesture for Minorities in Pakistan which would not make an iota of difference in their lifestyle but just be quoted in several debates to underline "secularity" or equal opportunity given to minorities in Pakistan. No Less no More.

[R.A.W.]

Thats no difference... often people here use Kia as kya or vice versa. There is no difference in the way of speaking. Believe me, we understand every thing that is said in a Bolloywood Movie but cant understand the news channels (star news) and National Geographic Hindi.

I think you can understand the difference between the two languages now. Bollywood doesn't use much Sanskrit but Star News and National Geographic do.

No no its not sanskrit. Sanskrit is totally diffrent. Like when we say "Main Jaaonga" in Hindi in sanskrit it will be "Aham Gasyami" Actually on news channels they use pure Hindi. And there is lot of diffrence then. like when i say "May India prosper" then it will be "Bharat ka uthan ho". But in real life we use mixed. Hindi urdu mix. Even when i write poetry it has words from both hindi and urdu.

[Developereo]

We dont usually Speak Khaalis Urdu ..

That is true. Pure Urdu is beautiful and poetic. In fact it is used mostly in poetry and most people need to read it slowly to even understand it. Ordinary, slang Urdu in Pakistan would probably give apoplectic fits to purists in Lucknow.

Slang Urdu has so many English words thrown in, it sounds downright crass compared to the pure, poetic Urdu. Of course it doesn't help when our own government and mainstream media use English words so cavalierly in official documents and titles. Sad, indeed.

I like the one we have right now just fine - minorities don't need thanks through the selection of an anthem, they need thanks, as do all Pakistanis, through a nation that offers opportunity, justice and equality.

Yes, but in addition to all that, there is something to be said for symbolism. The Americans and the Indians understand it well.

[UmairP]

No no its not sanskrit. Sanskrit is totally diffrent. Like when we say "Main Jaaonga" in Hindi in sanskrit it will be "Aham Gasyami" Actually on news channels they use pure Hindi. And there is lot of diffrence then. like when i say "May India prosper" then it will be "Bharat ka uthan ho". But in real life we use mixed. Hindi urdu mix. Even when i write poetry it has words from both hindi and urdu.

Well I don't know Sanskrit so I thought those words were from Sanskrit.

[Developereo]

I think this would be again a tokenized gesture for Minorities in Pakistan which would not make an iota of difference in their lifestyle but just be quoted in several debates to underline "secularity" or equal opportunity given to minorities in Pakistan. No Less no More.

It would be symbolic in the sense of letting a non-Muslim kid know that they are a first-class citizen of a country that acknowledges and respects its diversity.

[eastwatch]

One little information about the national anthem sung in east Pakistan. I am not aware if the anthem written by Jagannath Azad was ever sung in the east. But, the east had another anthem written in Bengali by Poet Ghulam Mustafa. It was

Pakistan zindabad, Pakistan zindabad, Pakistan zindabad zindabad
Purobo Banglar Shamolimai, Pancho nodir tir-e oronimoy
Dhushoro Sindhu-r moru saharai, jhandai jage je azad
Pakistan zindabad, Pakistan zindabad, Pakistan zindabad zindabad
- - - - - ----------.

This anthem continued until the time when President Ayub Khan introduced a Persian language national anthem for the entire Pakistan sometime after 1956. The new one was not liked by us because the language could not be understood. It was not Urdu in conventional sense.

Some people are trying to say it is another form of Urdu, but in reality it was not Urdu. Moreover, the Bengali one was quite rythmic, had deep meaning and says about all the Provinces of Pakistan. The Persian one remained unpopular in the east.

[BelligerentPacifist]

[QUOTE=R.A.W.;492114]But the language which you guys use and we use is almost 80% same. the only diffrence is you write in urdu we write in devnagari. ...QUOTE]

80% would be an overestimation, but consider this: if Urdu shares 50% of its vocabulary with Hindi then it also shares 50% with Persian as well. When we meet Persiphones, we use the mutually-intelligible portion just as we do with Hindiphones.

[Murshad]

Yes it true we don’t speak, read and write pure Urdu these days. But this is unintentional phenomenon no one can control it. Every single language is categorized into street language and text language. This case applies to every language. Even English poetry written toady has different look what was in Willaim Wordswoth and ST Coleridge era.

Our national anthem did not evolve in one day. There should not be fun in it saying that after 1947 for so many years we did not have our national anthem. Till we got our final national anthem so many poets wrote anthem and on different occasions “unofficially” these different anthems were sung again “unofficially.” There was a committee made for final review and approval of national anthem right after 14th august 1947 which in different forms survived till approval of final anthem. This committee considered so many things for final approval. The poet whose anthem was selected as National anthem was not influential in ruling class at that time, so majority of the people think it was decided on merit. At least there was no religious minority/majority or ethnic issue was considered.
Since Urdu was declared national language so that why a master piece written in classic text language was selected. If someone says majority of words are in anthem are taken from Persian, not me, but senior scholars of language consider it a very superficial criticism. Now someone also said that majority of the vocabulary is taken from Persian, it is also not considered true. Foe this we have to look how this language evolved over years.

This ‘laralapa laralapa” issue is described here with bit spicy touch. This incident is described by few renowned personalities in their books. Actually what happened, all delegated were asked to sing their respective national anthem in one function, and that person did not know national anthem by heart so to avoid embarrassment he sung ‘laralapa laralapa” . Even I think Mukhtar Masood has also mentioned this incident in one of his book.

[dk33]

Back to topic please - which is the Anthem written by Azad, and not Pakistan's blasphemy laws or India's communal tensions and violence.

I pop in on one thread to read during my hiatus and I'm dragged into moderating again.

Bye again.

[SABRE]

Prior to "Pak sar zameen" anthem Pakistan used Iqbal's "Bachay ki duaa" as national anthem. Many schools in Punjab province did not accept Persian anthem for a long time and continued with Iqbal's poetry.

[Developereo]

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PakistanPaedia - National Anthem Pakistan

A Tune to Die For

For the newly born sate of Pakistan, there were many challenges, and one of these was the necessity of having a national anthem. Upon independence, when the the flag was hoisted it was accompanied by the song, " Pakistan Zindabad, Azadi Paendabad". The flag itself had only been approved by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan three days earlier. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, wanted an anthem immediately on independence and at his own had asked a Lahore-based Hindu writer, Jagannath Azad on 9 August 1947 to write a national anthem for Pakistan in five days. The anthem written by Azad was quickly approved by Jinnah, and it was played on Radio Pakistan. This initial anthem remained as Pakistan’s national anthem for approximately eighteen months.

Āe sarzamīn-e-Pāk
Zarre tere hain
āj Sitāron se tabnak
Roshan hain kehkashān se
Kahīn āj teri khak

O land of Pakistan,
Each particle of yours
Is being illuminated by stars.
Even today your dust has been
Been brightened by the galaxy

In 1948, A.R. Ghani from Transvaal, South Africa, offered two prizes of Rs. 5,000 each for the poet and composer of a new national anthem. The prizes were announced through a Government press note published in June 1948. In December 1948, a National Anthem Committee (NAC) was formed, initially chaired by the Information Secretary, Shaikh Muhammad Ikram. Committee members included several politicians, poets and musicians such as Abdur Rab Nishtar, Ahmed Ghualm Ali Chagla and Hafeez Jullandhuri. But nothing could be immediately finalized and when President Suekarno of Indonesia, the first foreign head of the state to visit Pakistan, visited Pakistan in 1950, Pakistan's national anthem was not played. It was then that the National Anthem was composed (WITHOUT LYRICS) by musician Ahmed Ghulam Ali Chagla, which was played on March 30,1950 on the arrival of King of Iran Reza Shah Pehalvi. The first instrumental anthem was played by the Pakistan Navy band at PNS Dilawar under Warrant Officer Abdul Ghafoor. The anthem was also played during the Prime Minister's visit to the United States. Although it was approved for playing during the visit of the Shah, official recognition was not given until January 5, 1954. In the meantime, however, Mr Ahmed Ghulam Ali Chagla had died in 1953, before he could see his tremendously appealing tune to have been accepted as the final anthem of Pakistan. His contribution to the national anthem was recognized by the government of Pakistan in 1996, when he was posthumously awarded the "President's Pride of Performance award", which was received by his son Abdul Khaliq Chagla on March 23, 1997.

Left to right: Jagannath Azad - Ahmed Ghualm Ali Chagla - Hafeez Jalandhari

After 7 years since independence, the search for proper lyrics for the national anthem, finally ended and the lyrics written by Abdul Hafeez Jalandhari were finally approved and became the official national anthem of Pakistan in 1954. The delay had occurred since the lyrics had to be superimposed on the music already composed by Mr Chagla in 1950. On 13 August 1954, Hafeez Jalandhari sang his own written National anthem on Radio Pakistan, which had 15 lines. Later the anthem was composed in the form of chorus, sung by Shameem Bano, Kaukab Jahan, Rasheeda Begum, Najam Ara, Naseema Shaheen, Ahmed Rushdie, Zawar Hussain, Akhtar Abbas, Ghulam Daastagir, Anwar Zaheer and Akhtar Wasi Ali. The entire anthem is for 80 seconds and some 38 instruments were used in its recording. The first colour film with flag and anthem was produced on January 19th, 1955 in USA.

Ahmed Rushdie and Others
The entire text is in Persian except the word "ka" (red in text below) which is in Urdu.