Sare Jahan se Accha

This article is about the Urdu poem. For other use(s), see Sare Jahan se Accha (disambiguation).

Sāre Jahān se Accha
by Muhammad Iqbal
Original title	Tarānah-e-Hindi
First published in	Ittehad
Country	British India
Language	Urdu
Form	Ghazal
Publication date	16 August 1904

Muhammad Iqbal, then president of the Muslim League in 1930 and address deliverer

"Sāre Jahān se Accha", originally known as "Tarānah-e-Hindi", is a children's Hindustani patriotic song written by poet Muhammad Iqbal in the ghazal style of Urdu poetry. The poem was published in the weekly journal Ittehad on 16 August 1904. Publicly recited by Iqbal the following year at Government College, Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan) it quickly became an anthem of opposition to the British Raj. The song, an ode to Hindustan—the land comprising present-day Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, was later published in 1924 in the Urdu book Bang-e-Dara.

By 1910, Iqbal's worldview had changed to become global and Islamic. In a new song for children, "Tarānah-e-Milli," written in the same metre, he changed the homeland from "Hindustan" to the "whole world". In 1930, in his presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in Allahabad, he supported a separate nation-state in the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent, an idea that inspired the creation of Pakistan.

"Sāre Jahān se Accha" has remained popular in India. An abridged version is sung and played frequently as a patriotic song and as a marching song of the Indian Armed Forces. The most popular musical composition is that of sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.

Lyrics

The original poem is in the Hindustani language, a pluricentric language of two standard varities: Hindi and Urdu. In India, where Hindi is an official language, the text of the poem is usually rendered in the Devanagari script. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, where Urdu is an official language there, the text is officially written in the Nastaliq script.

Nastaliq	Devanagari	Latin script	English translation
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 हिंदी 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 jahañ se acchā, Hindositañ hamāra Ham bulbuleñ haiñ is ki, yeh gulsitañ hamāra Ghurbat meñ hoñ agar ham, rahta hai dil vatan meñ Samjho vahiñ hameñ bhi dil ho jahañ hamāra Parbat vah sab se uñca, hamsāyah āsmañ ka Vah santari hamāra, vah pāsbañ hamāra Godi meñ khelti haiñ is ki hazāroñ nadiyañ Gulshan hai jin ke dam se rashk-e-janañ hamāra Ai āb-e-rūd-e-Ganga! vah din haiñ yād tujh ko? Utra tire kināre jab kārvañ hamāra Mazhab nahiñ sikhāta āpas meñ bair rakhna Hindi haiñ ham, vatan hai Hindositañ hamārā Yūnān-o-Misr-o-Rūma, sab mit gae jahañ se Ab tak magar hai bāqi, nām-o-nishañ hamāra Kuch bāt hai ki hasti, mitti nahiñ hamāri Sadiyoñ raha hai dushman daur-e-zamañ hamāra Iqbāl! koi mahram apna nahiñ jahañ meñ Malūm kya kisi ko dard-e-nihañ hamāra!	Better than the entire world, is our Hindustan, We are its nightingales, and 'tis our garden abode.   If we're in an alien place, the heart remaineth in the homeland, And consider us to be right there where our heart would be.   That tallest mountain, that shade-sharer of the sky, 'Tis our sentry, 'tis our watchman.   In its lap where frolic thousands of rivers, Whose vitality maketh our garden the envy of paradise.   O flowing waters of Ganges, dost thou remember that day When our caravan first disembarked on thy waterfront?   Religion teacheth us not to bear animosity among ourselves We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.   In a world where Ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome have all vanished, Our own attributes live on today.   There's something about our existence for it doeth not get wiped, Even though for centuries the world's time-cycle hath been our foe.   Iqbal! We have no confidant in this world, What doeth 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 to preside over a function. Instead of delivering a speech, Iqbal sang "Sāre Jahān se Accha". 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 "Tarānah-e-Milli"

In 1910, Iqbal wrote another song for children, "Tarānah-e-Milli" ("Anthem of the Religious Community"), which was composed in the same metre and rhyme scheme as "Sāre Jahān se Accha", but which renounced much of the sentiment of the earlier song. The sixth stanza of "Sāre Jahān se Accha", which is often quoted as proof of Iqbal's secular outlook:

Mazhab nahiñ sikhāta āpas meñ bair rakhna
Hindi haiñ ham, vatan hai Hindūstañ hamāra

Religion teacheth us not to bear ill-will among ourselves
We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.

contrasted significantly with the first stanza of "Tarānah-e-Milli" (1910) reads:

Cīn-o-Arab hamāra, Hindūstañ hamāra
Muslim haiñ ham, vatan hai sāra jahañ hamāra

Central Asia and Arabia are ours, Hindustan is ours
We are Muslims, the whole world is our homeland.

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 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

• "Sāre Jahān se Accha" 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.
• 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 (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 "Sāre Jahān 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. It was later recorded by the singer Lata Mangeshkar to a 3rd altogether different tune. The first, third, fourth and sixth stanzas 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, 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.
• 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 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.

See also

• Index of Muhammad Iqbal–related articles
• Iqbal bibliography
• "Amar Shonar Bangla"
• "Qaumi Taranah"
• "Jana Gana Mana"
• "Vande Mataram"
• "Qadam Qadam Baṛhāye Ja"
• National Pledge (India)

External links

• "Tarana-e-Hindi at Rabia Memorial School, Fatehpur Mau (UP) India". YouTube. 23 January 2013. (Children singing the complete lyrics of the song.)