Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua

"Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua" (Urdu: لب پہ آتی ہے دعا; also known as "Bachche Ki Dua"), is a duʿā or prayer, in Urdu verse authored by Muhammad Iqbal in 1902.[1] The dua is recited in morning school assembly almost universally in Pakistan,[2][3] and in Urdu-medium schools in India.[4][5]

The song has long been sung in the private The Doon School in Dehradun, India, in a secular morning assembly ritual.[6] The Imam of the Jama Masjid, Delhi, Muhibullah Nadwi, recited it as a boy in an English-medium primary school in India in the 1940s.[7] Even earlier, the prayer was broadcast by All India Radio, Lucknow, a few months after Iqbal's death in 1938.[8] The prayer has also been interpreted by an all-women's American bluegrass music band, Della Mae, which toured Islamabad and Lahore in Pakistan in 2012.[9]

In October 2019, a headmaster of a government-run primary school in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, India, was suspended by the district education authorities following complaints by two Hindu nationalist organizations (Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal) that the song, which was being recited in the school's morning assembly, was [sic] a "madrasa prayer."[10] Ali was later reinstated but transferred to another school.[11]

  1. ^ Muḥammad Ikrām Cug̲h̲tāʾī (2003). Iqbal, new dimensions: a collection of unpublished and rare Iqbalian studies. Sang-e-Meel Publications. p. 172. ISBN 978-969-35-1433-9.
  2. ^ Wankwani, Ramesh Kumar (21 January 2021), Iqbal's Dream, Pak Poetry 24, retrieved 25 January 2021
  3. ^ Agencies (3 November 2016), Joint event to be held on Shakespeare and Iqbal in UK, retrieved 8 July 2020
  4. ^ M. Athar Tahir (1992). Punjab portraits. Sang-e-Meel Publications. p. 252. ISBN 978-969-35-0189-6.
  5. ^ Rashid, Waseem (8 June 2015), Naib Hain Hum: Interview with Waleed Iqbal (Urdu), Chauthi Dunya
  6. ^ Srivastava, Sanjay (27 September 2005). Constructing Post-Colonial India: National Character and the Doon School. Routledge. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-134-68358-1.
  7. ^ Salam, Ziya Us; Parvaiz, Mohammad Aslam (12 February 2020). Madrasas in the Age of Islamophobia. SAGE Publications. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-93-5328-930-0.
  8. ^ All India Radio (7 October 1938). THE INDIAN LISTENER: Vol. III. No. 20. Lucknow, 8:15 PM (7th OCTOBER 1938). All India Radio. pp. 1464–. GGKEY:G20PN7BERB5.
  9. ^ Lab pay aati hai dua… strikes a chord, Dawn, 14 November 2012, retrieved 8 July 2020
  10. ^ Kumar, Sanjay (22 October 2019), How an Iqbal poem got a Muslim headmaster suspended in India, The Express Tribune, retrieved 8 July 2020
  11. ^ IANS (20 October 2019), Suspended UP headmaster reinstated with a warning, Outlook India, retrieved 8 July 2020