There are certain things in the national life like the personality of its founder, its flag or its national anthem which acquire a sanctified status with the passage of time and reasonable people do not create any controversy about them.
Unfortunately in Pakistan certain elements continue to create unnecessary controversies on these national icons even after 62 years after the nation’s birth. They just want to add confusion in the life of an already confused nation surrounded by various controversies about religion, system of governance and economic difficulties.
It was surprising when an anchor of a private TV channel in one of this Channel’s programs claimed that Quaid-e-Azam had asked a Hindu poet Jagannath Azad to write the national anthem of Pakistan which he did. This anthem was played from Radio Pakistan, Lahore at midnight of August 14, 1947.
This anchor, who only has a layman’s knowledge of Pakistan’s history and not enough of Urdu poetry claimed that his research shows that the Quaid selected a Hindu poet to write the emerging Pakistan’s national anthem to give a message of friendship and Hindu-Muslim amity to India. Nothing could be far from the truth than this nonsense.
The Quaid was not so naive as to select a Hindu poet to write the anthem of the emerging Muslim state of Pakistan which was the result of his life long struggle for the creation of a homeland for Indian Muslims. Quaid-e-Azam was neither the scholar of Urdu poetry nor of music.
How could he, then take the responsibility of commissioning an average Hindu poet to write the most important piece of poetry which will be a landmark of Pakistan’s identity whilst Pakistan itself was full of outstanding and renowned Urdu poets.
The historical fact is that when Pakistan was to come into existence a great number of Urdu poets were writing naghmaas to welcome the newly emerging nation; Jagannath Azad was one of them. It is possible that on the night of August 14, 1947 the people who were in charge of Radio transmission from Lahore, in their excitement put on air Jagannath Azad’s naghma which was readily available.
This neither means that it was Pakistan’s national anthem, nor that it was selected by Quaid-i-Azam. Two young boys from the audience stood up and aggressively contested the anchor’s claim. They said why the TV Channel is raising this controversy after more than half a century. One participant hinted that this sinister move may be part of the channel’s business interests with Indian media under a slogan “aman ki asha”. There is no harm in promoting peace efforts between India and Pakistan, but not at the cost of the Quaid’s image and Pakistan national anthem’s integrity or any slur on its writer Hafeez Jallandhry. I would welcome any further information on this subject on my e-mal address given in this column. It may recalled that former President General Ziaul Haq left no stone unturned to mutilate Quaid-e-Azam’s speeches and writings in support of his Islamization agenda and against parliamentary form of democracy. Addressing the seventh session of his hand picked Majlis-e-Shoora on August 12, 1983, he made a fantastic claim, which on the face of it was a brazen lie, that the Quaid wrote a personal diary which had been found preserved in the National Archives and had not been published so far, General Zia declared: He said, “The Quaid-e-Azam, wanted to see that the office of the Head of the State should be very effective as well as powerful. A clue to this is available from the personal notebook of Quaid-e-Azam which is still available in our National Archives. The entry has been made in Quaid-e-Azam’s own handwriting. The entry is in English and I will read it out to you. In the first line Quaid-e-Azam writes in the diary: “Dangers of parliamentary form of government. He (Jinnah) points to the dangers of the parliamentary form of government as item number one. (i) Parliamentary form of government has worked satisfactorily so far in England. Nowhere else. (ii) Presidential form of government is more suited to Pakistan.
Yes, these are Quaid’s own words, inscribed in his diary, which we have preserved. In view of the historical importance of this documentary evidence, the government has decided to issue it to the Press for publication. I believe after this explicit evidence, in fact command, of the Quaid-e-Azam the controversy about our form of government should come to an end, because the form of his choice not only meets the requirements of our modern age but is also very close to Islam.”
This discovery of General Ziaul Haq was covered widely by the national media with facsimile of the relevant page of Quaid-e-Azam’s diary displayed on front pages. PTV particularly not only splashed the story with the visuals of the diary but also telecast several discussion programs on the subject in which Ziaul Haq’s favorite scholars, intellectuals and journalists participated. They considered the President’s startling discovery as the scoop of the century and fully supported his claim that in view of the Quaid’s clear cut verdict, Pakistan could only have the presidential form of government and none other. One wonders whether this was a figment of Ziaul Haq’s own imagination or his spin doctors were responsible for this ingenious lie. But it was so ridiculous that nobody believed it and after Mian Mumtaz Muhammad Khan Daultana and Mr. K.H. Khurshid who was Quaid’s Secretary denied the existence of such a diary, it died its natural death. Neither Ziaul Haq, nor any one of his colleagues ever mentioned this imaginary diary again.
Another travesty of the newly acquired freedom by the electronic media was the bizarre coverage given to the marriage of Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik and the Indian tennis player Sania Mirza solemnized in the Indian city of Hyderabad which raged over Pakistan’s TV sets for more than two weeks. An added attraction was a claim by an Indian girl that Shoaib had married her in the year 2000. Her father insisted that Shoaib should divorce his daughter before marrying Sania Mirza. The tussle continued for a few days but finally a settlement was reached and the couple got married in Hyderabad.
Our media particularly TV channels highlighted each and every minor detail in full with Indian marriage songs playing in the background. Major national and international stories were left uncovered. A Pakistani lady minister, who was visiting India, especially flew to Hyderabad to attend the marriage and presented a solid gold crown to the bride. She did not however explain whether the crown was purchased from her own pocket or taxpayer’s money. All hell broke loose when the married couple arrived in Lahore for a days stay in a five star hotel. A wild eyed gang of reporters and cameramen swooped over them in a mad rush knocking down the bride’s mother. Poor Sania cried! Have we gone crazy?