Jamia Tarana: The Tale of Struggles and Aspirations

If there is one thing that binds Jamia biradari together, it would be our tarana, Dayar-e-Shauq. There could not be a better ode to the magnanimity of this institution. The story of Jamia Tarana beings in the early 1960s; it was when Jamia was growing drastically in all aspects of university education.

During the 44th Foundation Day celebrations in the year 1964, this was published as an Urdu poem in the university’s journal, Jamia (established in 1923) under the anonymous name of ‘Gumnam Jamaii’. The poem beautifully encapsulated JMI’s spirit of idealism and dissent, along with the struggles faced by the university and its associates. The imagery with nationalistic undertones, draped in passion gave a state of equilibrium to the emotions. University’s then music teacher, Hilal Ahmed Khan, composed a tune for the poem and it was unanimously chosen as JMI’s official anthem.

It was soon confirmed that the poem was written by Mohammed Khaliq Siddiqui, at that time a new professor who had recently started teaching at the University. We owe that revelation to his friends. Khaliq was born in the year 1922 at Rudauli (today in district Ayodhaya of Uttar Pradesh). Coincidentally, it is also the home town of the famous poet Majaz Lakhnawi, the author of AMU Tarana.

Khaliq did his graduation and post-graduation in Economics from Lucknow University. He came to Jamia in 1952 and joined the Department of Education, where ideologically he came closer to Communism. After joining the Economics Department of the university in the year 1964, he was appointed Lecturer in 1970. He died at the age of fifty-nine in 1981. Khaliq’s daughter Zoya Hasan is a renowned Political Scientist and former Dean of the School of Social Sciences (SSS) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and was married to Mushirul Hasan, an eminent historian and former Vice-Chancellor of JMI.

In these hundred long years, Jamia Millia Islamia witnessed several faces, events, glory, and dissent. Jamia Tarana recalls its foundation in answer to the nationalist call, the quest for freedom which made this institution. For many, this University was and continues to be “the home of their passions, the land of their desires.”

Aashish Kochhar is a student pursuing History from Jamia Millia Islamia.

Edited by: Nuzhat Khan