Controversial previous national anthem claim
For the first time in 2004, it was claimed by an Indian journalist that the first national anthem of Pakistan was written by Jagan Nath Azad, a Hindu poet from Lahore, on the personal request of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.[7] It was alleged that Jinnah asked Azad to write the anthem on 11 August 1947 and that it was later approved by Jinnah as the official national anthem for the next year and a half.[8] However, this claim is historically unsubstantiated, disputed and controversial. Many historians, including Dr. Safdar Mahmood and Aqeel Abbas Jafri, reject this claim and believe that Jagan Nath Azad neither met Jinnah nor wrote Pakistan's first national anthem.[9][10] The fact that there is no historical documentary record of any such claim prior to 2004 also makes this claim dubious and doubtful.
According to this claim, Jagan Nath Azad is alleged to have said:
"The National anthem was written by me in five days time. It was too short time for me but I tried to do full justice to it keeping in mind the road map charted by Jinnah sahib for modern Pakistan. The national anthem was sent to Jinnah sahib who approved it in a few hours. It was sung for the first time on Pakistan radio, Karachi (which was the capital of Pakistan then). Meanwhile the situation in both east and west Punjab was becoming worse with every passing day and the same set of friends told me in September 1947 that even they would not be able to provide protection to me and that it would be better for me to migrate to India. I decided to migrate to this side. The song written by me continued to be the national anthem for one and a half years."
However, this claim is unsubstantiated as Radio Pakistan recordings and international broadcasting services of the time, such as the BBC, have no such records in their archives nor is there any evidence that this version of the anthem was ever played on Radio Pakistan. The claim seems dubious as Radio Pakistan, Karachi, was established in 1948 and did not exist in 1947. At independence, Pakistan only had three radio stations at Dhaka (established in 1939), Lahore (1937) and Peshawar (1936).[11] Another argument given against this claim is that Azad's alleged statement was taken at face value on the claim of an Indian journalist in 2004.[12] The claim is also discredited since Azad himself did not make any such claim in any of his published works.[13] If Azad had written Pakistan's first national anthem, he would have mentioned it somewhere in his published works, which he did not. A website created by Azad's son also claims that Azad was given the Presidential Iqbal Award by Pakistan in 1979 but the records from the Pakistan government do not authenticate this claim. Azad's son has also been unable to produce any documentary evidence to substantiate such a claim. Azad himself never claimed to have received any award from Pakistan during his lifetime.[12][14]
I know that my suggestions will never be implemented.
