The Truth about Allama Iqbal ( 1877-1938 )

While I regard Iqbal as a good poet, I intensely dislike him for his strong support of dividing India and creating Pakistan.

Some people say that Iqbal wrote ' Saare jehan se achcha Hindustan hamara ' . Such people also quote the the sixth stanza of Saare Jahan Se Achcha (1904),  as proof of Iqbal's secular outlook:

Maẕhab nahīṉ sikhātā āpas meṉ bair rakhnā

Hindī haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai Hindūstāṉ hamārā

or,

Religion does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselves

We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan.

Such people say that this proves that Iqbal never wanted Partition of India. These people forget that this poem was written in 1904, when Iqbal was only 27 years old, and his later communal views had not developed.

 However, his views evidently changed subsequently. Thus, in Tarana-e-Milli  written in 1910 he writes

Chīn o-ʿArab hamārā, Hindūstāṉ hamārā

Muslim haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai sārā jahāṉ hamārā

or,

Central Asia and Arabia are ours, Hindustan is ours

We are Muslims, the whole world is our homeland.[3]

Iqbal's world view had now changed; it had become pan Islamic. Instead of singing of Hindustan, "our homeland," the new song proclaimed that ' We are Muslims , and the whole world belongs to us '. (See also 'Shikwa' and 'Jawab-e-Shikwa ).

 Gradually, Iqbal became highly communal, and a strong supporter of creating Pakistan, a separate homeland for Muslims in India

.This, in his presidential address to the Muslim League annual conference in Allahabad in 1930, he strongly supported a separate nation-state in the Muslim majority areas of the sub-continent, an idea that inspired the creation of Pakistan.

Thiis is why I strongly dislike him