Sare Jahan se Accha

"Sare Jahan se Accha"
Song
Published	16 August 1904
Genre	Patriotic song
Language	Urdu

Sare Jahan se Accha Hindustan hamara (Urdu: سارے جہاں سے اچھا‎; Hindustani: सारे जहाँ से अच्छा; Sāre Jahāṉ se Acchā), formally known as Tarānah-e-Hind or Tarānah-i-Hindi (Urdu: ترانۂ ہندی‎; Hindustani: तराना-इ-हिन्द; Anthem of the People of India), is an Urdu language patriotic song written by Muhammad Iqbal. It is often rendered during patriotic occasions in India and is used as a marching song at a number of national events including the Indian Armed Forces Beating the Retreat ceremony.^[1] The song is also played by the bands of the Indian Armed Forces accompanied by music composed by Ravi Shankar.^[2]

Written for children in the ghazal style of Urdu poetry by Iqbal, the poem was published in the weekly journal Ittehad on 16 August 1904.^[3] Recited by Iqbal the following year at Government College, Lahore, then in British India, it quickly became an anthem of opposition to the British rule in India. The song, an ode to Hindustan—the land comprising present-day Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka—both celebrated and cherished the land even as it lamented its age-old anguish. As Tarana-e-Hindi, it was later published in 1924 in the Urdu book Bang-i-Dara.^[4]

Composition

Iqbal was a lecturer at the Government College, Lahore at that time, and was invited by a student Lala Har Dayal to preside over a function. Instead of delivering a speech, Iqbal sang Saare Jahan Se Achcha. The song, in addition to embodying yearning and attachment to the land of Hindustan, expressed "cultural memory" and had an elegiac quality. In 1905, the 27-year-old Iqbal viewed the future society of the subcontinent as both a pluralistic and composite Hindu-Muslim culture. Later that year he left for Europe for a three-year sojourn that was to transform him into an Islamic philosopher and a visionary of a future Islamic society.^[4]

Iqbal's transformation and Tarana-e-Milli

In 1910, Iqbal wrote another song for children, Tarana-e-Milli (Anthem of the Religious Community), which was composed in the same metre and rhyme scheme as Saare Jahan Se Achcha, but which renounced much of the sentiment of the earlier song.^[5] The sixth stanza of Saare Jahan Se Achcha (1904), which is often quoted as proof of Iqbal's secular outlook:

Maẕhab nahīṉ sikhātā āpas meṉ bair rakhnā Hindī haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai Hindūstāṉ hamārā		Religion does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselves We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.

contrasted significantly with the first stanza of Tarana-e-Milli (1910) reads:^[5]

Cīn o-ʿArab hamārā, Hindūstāṉ hamārā Muslim haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai sārā jahāṉ hamārā		Central Asia[1] and Arabia are ours, Hindoostan is ours We are Muslims, the whole world is our homeland.[2] ^ Although "Chin" refers to China in modern Urdu, in Iqbal's day it referred to Central Asia, coextensive with historical Turkestan. See also, Iqbal: Tarana-e-Milli, 1910. Columbia University, Department of South Asian Studies. ^ Cite error: The named reference milli was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Iqbal's world view had now changed; it had become both global and Islamic. Instead of singing of Hindustan, "our homeland," the new song proclaimed that "our homeland is the whole world."^[6] Two decades later, in his presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in Allahabad in 1930, he supported a separate nation-state in the Muslim majority areas of the sub-continent, an idea that inspired the creation of Pakistan.^[7]

Popularity in India and in popular culture

• Saare Jahan Se Achcha has remained popular in India for nearly a century. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have sung it over a hundred times when he was imprisoned at Yerawada Jail in Pune in the 1930s.^[8]
• In the 1930s and 1940s, it was sung to a slower tune. In 1945, while working in Mumbai with IPTA (Indian Peoples Theater Association), the sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar was asked to compose the music for the K.A. Abbas movie Dharti ka Laal and the Chetan Anand movie Neecha Nagar. During this time, Ravi Shankar was asked to compose music for the song Saare jahan se accha. In an interview in 2009 with Shekhar Gupta, Ravi Shankar recounts that he felt that the existing tune was too slow and sad. To give it a more inspiring impact, he set it to a stronger tune which is today the popular tune of this song, which they then tried out as a group song.^[2] It was later recorded by the singer Lata Mangeshkar to an 3rd altogether different tune. Stanzas (1), (3), (4), and (6) of the song became an unofficial national song in India,^[3] and the Ravi Shankar version was adopted as the official quick march of the Indian Armed Forces.^[9]
• Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian astronaut, employed the first line of the song in 1984 to describe to then prime minister Indira Gandhi how India appeared from outer space.^[10]
• In his inaugural speech, the former prime minister of India Manmohan Singh quoted this poem at his first press conference after becoming the Prime Minister.

• The song is popular in India in schools, and as a marching song for the Indian armed forces (played during public events and parades including those for the Indian independence day, republic day and Beating the Retreat).^[4]
• A parody of the song was written by the Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianvi for the 1958 Hindi film Phir subah hogi and sung by Mukesh. With the title "Cheeno arab hamara", the song drew the irony between the reality of life for the common and poor people, with the idealized context drawn in the original song.^[1]

Text

Urdu	Devanagari		Romanisation (ALA-LC)
سارے جہاں سے اچھا ہندوستاں ہمارا ہم بلبلیں ہیں اس کی، یہ گلستاں ہمارا غربت میں ہوں اگر ہم، رہتا ہے دل وطن میں سمجھو وہیں ہمیں بھی دل ہو جہاں ہمارا پربت وہ سب سے اونچا، ہمسایہ آسماں کا وہ سنتری ہمارا، وہ پاسباں ہمارا گودی میں کھیلتی ہیں اس کی ہزاروں ندیاں گلشن ہے جن کے دم سے رشکِ جناں ہمارا اے آبِ رودِ گنگا! وہ دن ہیں یاد تجھ کو؟ اترا ترے کنارے جب کارواں ہمارا مذہب نہیں سکھاتا آپس میں بیر رکھنا ہندی ہیں ہم، وطن ہے ہندوستاں ہمارا یونان و مصر و روما سب مٹ گئے جہاں سے اب تک مگر ہے باقی نام و نشاں ہمارا کچھ بات ہے کہ ہستی مٹتی نہیں ہماری صدیوں رہا ہے دشمن دورِ زماں ہمارا اقبال! کوئی محرم اپنا نہيں جہاں میں معلوم کیا کسی کو دردِ نہاں ہمارا!‏		सारे जहाँ से अच्छा हिन्दोसिताँ हमारा हम बुलबुलें हैं इसकी यह गुलसिताँ हमारा ग़ुर्बत में हों अगर हम, रहता है दिल वतन में समझो वहीं हमें भी दिल हो जहाँ हमारा परबत वह सबसे ऊँचा, हम्साया आसमाँ का वह संतरी हमारा, वह पासबाँ हमारा गोदी में खेलती हैं इसकी हज़ारों नदियाँ गुल्शन है जिनके दम से रश्क-ए-जनाँ हमारा ऐ आब-ए-रूद-ए-गंगा! वह दिन हैं याद तुझको? उतरा तिरे किनारे जब कारवाँ हमारा मज़्हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना हिंद्वी हैं हम, वतन है हिन्दोसिताँ हमारा यूनान-ओ-मिस्र-ओ-रूमा सब मिट गए जहाँ से अब तक मगर है बाक़ी नाम-ओ-निशाँ हमारा कुछ बात है कि हस्ती मिटती नहीं हमारी सदियों रहा है दुश्मन दौर-ए-ज़माँ हमारा इक़्बाल! कोई महरम अपना नहीं जहाँ में मालूम क्या किसी को दर्द-ए-निहाँ हमारा!	Sāre jahāṉ se acchā, Hindositāṉ[11] hamārā Ham bulbuleṉ haiṉ is kī, yih gulsitāṉ[11] hamārā G̱ẖurbat meṉ hoṉ agar ham, rahtā hai dil wat̤an meṉ Samjho wuhīṉ hameṉ bhī dil ho jahāṉ hamārā Parbat wuh sab se ūṉcā, hamsāyah āsmāṉ kā Wuh santarī hamārā, wuh pāsbāṉ hamārā Godī meṉ kheltī haiṉ is kī hazāroṉ nadiyāṉ Guls̱ẖan hai jin ke dam se ras̱ẖk-i janāṉ hamārā Ai āb-i rūd-i Gangā! wuh din haiṉ yād tujh ko? Utrā tire[12] kināre jab kārwāṉ hamārā Maẕhab nahīṉ sikhātā āpas meṉ bair rakhnā Hindī haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai Hindositāṉ hamārā Yūnān o-Miṣr o-Rūmā, sab miṭ ga'e jahāṉ se Ab tak magar hai bāqī, nām o-nis̱ẖaṉ hamārā Kuch bāt hai kih hastī, miṭtī nahīṉ hamārī Ṣadiyoṉ rahā hai dus̱ẖman daur-i zamāṉ hamārā Iqbāl! ko'ī maḥram apnā nahīṉ jahāṉ meṉ Maʿlūm kyā kisī ko dard-i nihāṉ hamārā!

English Translation

Better than the entire world, is our Hindustan,
We are its nightingales, and it (is) our garden abode

If we are in an alien place, the heart remains in the homeland,
Know us to be only there where our heart is.

That tallest mountain, that shade-sharer of the sky,
It (is) our sentry, it (is) our watchman

In its lap where frolic thousands of rivers,
Whose vitality makes our garden the envy of Paradise.

O the flowing waters of the Ganges, do you remember that day
When our caravan first disembarked on your waterfront?

Religion does not teach us to bear animosity among ourselves
We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.

In a world in which ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome have all vanished without trace
Our own attributes (name and sign) live on today.

There is something about our existence for it doesn't get wiped
Even though, for centuries, the time-cycle of the world has been our enemy.

Iqbal! We have no confidant in this world
What does any one know of our hidden pain?

Notes and references

1. Imam, Sharjeel (6 July 2016). "Sare Jahan Se Acha: The Idea of India in Early 20th Century Urdu Poetry". The Wire. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
2. Gupta, Shekhar (5 December 2009). "Walk the talk - Interview with Pandit Ravi Shankar". NDTV. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
3. Pritchett, Frances. 2000. "Tarana-e-Hindi and Taranah-e-Milli: A Study in Contrasts." Columbia University Department of South Asian Studies.
4. "Saare Jahan Se Accha: Facts about the song and its creator". India Today. 21 April 2016. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
5. Iqbal: Tarana-e-Milli, 1910. Columbia University, Department of South Asian Studies.
6. Pritchett, Frances. 2000. Tarana-e-Hindi and Tarana-e-Milli: A Close Comparison. Columbia University Department of South Asian Studies.
7. A look at Iqbal; The Sunday Tribune – May 28, 2006
8. Times of India: Saare Jahan Se..., it's 100 now
9. Indian Military Marches.
10. India Empowered to Me Is: Saare Jahan Se Achcha, the home of world citizens
11. "Here they are to be pronounced not Hindūstāṉ and gu-lis-tāṉ, respectively, as usual, but Hindositāṉ and gul-si-tāṉ, respectively, to suit the meter." From: Pritchett, F. 2004. "Taraanah-i-Hindii" Columbia University, Department of South Asian Studies.
12. Pronounced "tiray" to suit the meter, in contrast to the usual "tayray." From: From: Pritchett, F. 2004. "Taraanah-i-Hindii" Columbia University, Department of South Asian Studies.

See also

• Iqbal bibliography
• Amar Shonar Bangla
• Jana Gana Mana
• Vande Mataram
• Qaumi Tarana
• National Pledge (India)
• "Best Indian Poems"
• "Dil Dil Pakistan"

External links

• Geet Ganga: Audio Version of Sare Jahan Se Acha – Available for Download
• Music India Online: Saare Jahan Se Achcha
• Raaga: Patriotic Songs Vol. 6 (2003) – Sare Jahan Se Achcha (Instrumental)