The Hindu : He's for songs of love

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 01, 2004

National

National

He's for songs of love

By Luv Puri

JAMMU, JAN. 31. Hear this: the person who wrote Pakistan's first national anthem is now an Indian citizen. He is ecstatic about the peace process between India and Pakistan. And he now wants to pen a "song of peace" that is common to both countries.

Professor Jagan Nath Azad, born in 1918 in Lahore, now in the Punjab province of Pakistan, is Professor Emeritus in Jammu University. He says: "On the morning of August 9, 1947 there was a message from Pakistan's first Governor-General, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in Lahore. I was asked to write a national anthem for Pakistan. I told them it would be difficult to pen it in five days , but then I agreed. The national anthem was approved in a few hours and it was sung for the first time on Pakistan radio... when the new nation was born."

Recollecting the dark days of 1947 he says: " My relatives migrated to India due to the violence which engulfed the subcontinent. Even I was about to pack my luggage but my Muslim friends did not allow me to leave and I stayed back."

He added that ultimately the same set of friends told him in September 1947 that even they would not be able to provide him protection and that it would be better for him to migrate to India.

The song written by him continued to be the national anthem for one and a half years. Later, a new song written by the Urdu poet Hafiz Jallundri was chosen as the national anthem.

An expert in `Iqbaliat' (studies of Allama Iqbal, who wrote sare jahan se acchha, Hindustan hamara ), Prof. Azad is keenly following India-Pakistan relations.

He says: "It is my wish that one day the people of the two countries will sing the songs of love instead of hatred."

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