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Journalism of Courage
Recitation of the prayer ‘Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua’ written by Muhammad Iqbal has once again triggered a controversy — this time in UP’s Bareilly district. After a complaint from a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) official in the district, the principal of a government school and a shiksha mitra were booked for “hurting religious sentiments” after a video of students reciting the prayer during the morning assembly went viral.
The Education Department suspended school principal Nahid Siddiqui and ordered a probe against shiksha mitra Wazeeruddin.
This is not the first instance of a school head being suspended due to the recitation of the prayer. Three years ago, in October 2019, the headmaster of a government primary school in Bisalpur area of Pilibhit was suspended following a complaint by local VHP workers who alleged that the teacher made students recite a religious prayer that is usually recited in madrasas.
In that case, too, the students had recited Allama Iqbal’s ‘Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua’. The headmaster was later reinstated, but was transferred to another school.
The prayer, written by Iqbal in 1902, has been sung at several educational institutions in India and Pakistan, including some prestigious schools which sing it in their morning assembly.
Among Iqbal’s many writings, the most celebrated is the immortal ‘Saare jahan se achcha Hindustan hamara’, written in 1904, his beautiful ode to India, which became one of the songs that inspired the freedom fighters against British rule.
Iqbal’s first published collection of poems came out in 1923, and was titled ‘Bang-e-Dara’ (Call of the Marching Bell). He wrote mostly in Urdu and Persian.
Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) was born to a family with Kashmiri Pandit ancestry that had embraced Islam in the seventeenth century. Iqbal was born in Sialkot, Punjab (now in Pakistan) and died in Lahore when he was aged 60 years. Iqbal’s tomb is located in Hazuri Bagh in Lahore. Iqbal is commonly referred to as Allama, which is a title given to Islamic scholars.
Apart from being a writer, Iqbal was also a lawyer and appeared at the Lahore High Court in several cases.
After completing his BA and MA at Government College, Lahore, he went on to study in Europe in 1905. At Trinity College, Cambridge, he completed a second Bachelors degree, and completed a PhD at the University of Munich later. In 1922, he was knighted by King George V, giving him the title of “Sir”.
In his later life, Iqbal came to favour the idea of a separate nation for Muslims, and is believed to have been the influence behind Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s vision of a separate nation of Pakistan. In that country, Iqbal is regarded as the ideological founder of the nation — the man who envisioned the state that Jinnah gave physical shape to.
Iqbal’s confidence in Jinnah is believed to have sprouted from Jinnah’s integrity since he was the only Muslim leader with an unchallenged national status and because he did not have provincial or regional ties.
