"Sare Jahan se Accha" (

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( , from '' Hindū'' and ''-stān''), also sometimes spelt as Hindōstān ( ''Indo-land''), along with its shortened form ''Hind'' (), is the Persian-language name for the Indian subcontinent that later became commonly used by ...

"), is an

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Allama Muhammad Iqbal Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...

in the

ghazal The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...

style of

Urdu poetry Urdu poetry ( ur, ) is a tradition of poetry and has many different forms. Today, it is an important part of the cultures of South Asia. According to Naseer Turabi there are five major poets of Urdu which are Mir Taqi Mir (d.1810), Mirza Ghalib ...

. The poem was published in the weekly journal ''Ittehad'' on 16 August 1904.Pritchett, Frances. 2000.
"Tarana-e-Hindi and Taranah-e-Milli: A Study in Contrasts."
Columbia University Department of South Asian Studies. Publicly recited by Iqbal the following year at Government College, Lahore,

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

(now in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

) it quickly became an anthem of opposition to the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...

. The song, an ode to

—the land comprising present-day

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

, was later published in 1924 in the Urdu book

Bang-i-Dara ''The Call of the Marching Bell'' ( ur, , ''Bang-e-Dara''; published in 1924) was the first Urdu philosophical poetry book by Muhammad Iqbal, one of the greatest poet-philosophers of the sub-continent of India. Content The poems in ''The Call ...

. The song has remained popular, but only in India. An abridged version is sung and played frequently as a patriotic song and as a marching song of the Indian Armed Forces.

Text of poem

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,
consider us too

o be O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), plu ...

right there where our heart would be. 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 The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

, 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 Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

have all vanished
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?

Composition

Iqbal was a lecturer at the Government College, Lahore at that time, and was invited by a student

Lala Har Dayal Lala Har Dayal Mathur ( Punjabi: ਲਾਲਾ ਹਰਦਿਆਲ; 14 October 1884 – 4 March 1939) was an Indian nationalist revolutionary and freedom fighter. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service. His simp ...

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.

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.Iqbal: Tarana-e-Milli, 1910
Columbia University, Department of South Asian Studies. The sixth stanza of "Saare Jahan Se Achcha" (1904), which is often quoted as proof of Iqbal's secular outlook: contrasted significantly with the first stanza of ''Tarana-e-Milli'' (1910) reads: 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." Two decades later, in his presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

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.

Popularity in India

* ''Saare Jahan Se Achcha'' has remained popular in India for nearly a century.

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

is said to have sung it over a hundred times when he was imprisoned at Yerawada Jail in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

in the 1930s.Times of India: Saare Jahan Se..., it's 100 now
/ref> * In the 1930s and 1940s, it was sung to a slower tune. In 1945, while working in Mumbai with the

Indian People's Theatre Association Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) is the oldest association of theatre-artists in India. IPTA was formed in 1943 during the British rule in India, and promoted themes related to the Indian freedom struggle. Its goal was to bring cultur ...

(IPTA), the sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar was asked to compose the music for the K. A. Abbas film '' Dharti Ke Lal'' 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 Shekhar Gupta (born 26 August 1957) is an Indian journalist and author. He is the founder and the current editor-in-chief of ''ThePrint''. He is also a columnist for the ''Business Standard'' and pens a weekly column which appears every Saturda ...

, 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. It was later recorded by the singer

Lata Mangeshkar Lata Mangeshkar () (born as Hema Mangeshkar; 28 September 1929 – 06 February 2022) was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer. She is widely considered to have been the greatest and most influential singers in India. Her cont ...

to a 3rd altogether different tune. Stanzas (1), (3), (4), and (6) of the song became an unofficial national song in India, and the Ravi Shankar version was adopted as the official quick march of the Indian Armed Forces. This arrangement as marching tune of this song was made by Antsher Lobo. *

Rakesh Sharma Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma, AC (born 13 January 1949) is a former Indian Air Force pilot who flew aboard Soyuz T-11 on 3 April 1984 as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme. He is the only Indian citizen to travel in space, although ...

, the first Indian

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

, employed the first line of the song in 1984 to describe to then prime minister

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...

how India appeared from outer space. * In his inaugural speech, the former prime minister of India

Manmohan Singh Manmohan Singh (; born 26 September 1932) is an Indian politician, economist and statesman who served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014. He is also the third longest-serving prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indir ...

quoted this poem at his first press conference after becoming the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

. * The song is popular in India in schools as a patriotic song, sung during morning assemblies, and as a marching song for the Indian armed forces, played during public events and parades. It is played by the Armed forces Massed Bands each year for the Indian Independence Day, Republic Day and at the culmination of Beating the Retreat.

Text in the Devanagari script

In India, the text of the poem is often rendered in the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

script of

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Notes and references

Notes

Citations

External links

* (Children singing the complete lyrics of the song.) {{Muhammad Iqbal Poetry by Muhammad Iqbal Indian patriotic songs Indian poems Indian culture Literature of Indian independence movement Muhammad Iqbal Urdu-language words and phrases 1904 songs Indian military marches