We become ultra-patriotic in August because Independence Day falls in this month. Enter Absar Ahmed’s Hartaan Pakistan and you have an extra reason to celebrate the country’s birth anniversary because it is about the patriotic songs that have shaped our lives.

Each one of us has a top ten list of favourite patriotic songs, ones we listen to when we feel like showering praise on our motherland. Some have rated Tera Pakistan hai higher than Watan ki mitti gawah rehna, while others have Zameen ki goad rang se on their list at the top, succeeded by Yeh watan tumhara hai. But did you know when was the term Milli naghma first coined, and who was the poet behind that very first step in the direction of patriotic songs? According to Ahmed’s wonderfully-researched book, it was Allama Iqbal, whose Cheen-o-Arab hamara was sung in 1911 for the first time, and remained the quintessential national anthem until partition, after which two new anthems were prepared.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as the book is laced with information that many of us have no clue about. Did you know that before PTV came into existence, it was Radio Pakistan that catered to the patriotic element in the public or that PTV’s contribution towards milli naghmay was so diverse that songs were sung in every language?

Ahmed is considered an authority when it comes to patriotic songs because a) he has been collecting these songs from the age of six years and b) he is an archivist who has every patriotic song ever produced in the country in his library. While talking to The Express Tribune, he revealed that although this was his second book about patriotic songs, he considers it more than a catalogue because of the information it offers.

‘My first book was titled Naghmay Pakistan Kay and it was a catalogue of Pakistan's patriotic songs,” he says. “This one follows up on that. At first, I thought of coming up with an updated second edition of the first book but once I started writing about the songs, it shaped into a separate book.”

He shared that through this book, Pakistan has become the first-ever country in the world where the history of patriotic songs has been compiled and published in book form. “Before this, people in the UK and US had compiled patriotic songs from the World Wars I and II, but nothing more was done anywhere else,” says Ahmed. “No one had gone beyond the war songs, so you can say that this book is one of its kind and I am proud of it.’

Ahmed has been collecting patriotic songs since he was only eight years old, and the details he knew regarding these songs helped him compile the book in less than two years.

Not only is this book well-researched and thorough it takes the audience down memory lane and helps them understand the history of Pakistan, much better than the Pakistan Studies book taught in school. But the author’s description of the 1965 and 1971 wars between India and Pakistan seems to be for school kids rather than mature readers.

There are a few more issues that I had with the book. The first and foremost is the way film Bedari was applauded, a Pakistani film released in 1957 where all the songs were plagiarized from the Indian film Jagriti (1954) with Ratan Kumar who migrated to Pakistan two years later and remade the film. By the time the government found out about this, the songs Aao bachon sair karayen, Aye quaid e azam tera ehsan hai, and Hum laye hain toofan se had become popular, but were not promoted due to the plagiarism charge. Instead of criticising this act, the author hails it and terms it as something that was common in those days, when it wasn’t and that’s the biggest issue I have with the compilation.

Since the book was researched and published in less than eight months (a notable feat indeed), the author deserves to be commended and proofreading mistakes could be ignored. It is through this book that most of the readers would get to know how songs helped the nation during the different crises the country went through. For me, getting to know that Saleem Raza was the first singer to offer his services pro bono in the 1965 War, or that Shaukat Ali went into the war zone to boost the morale of the soldiers was something I might never have found out, had it not been mentioned in this book.

Ahmed’s dedication is the main reason why this book comes out as an encyclopedia of Milli Naghmay. He mentions how Alamgir decided to stay back in Pakistan despite hailing from East Pakistan and how he went on to become part of the TV fraternity; why Shehnaz Begum was relevant for most of the patriotic songs compiled after 1971; and how PTV took over the duties of Radio Pakistan once the new medium became popular. His decision to categorise patriotic songs according to different eras also needs to be appreciated because when you have so many songs to present, categorisation could become a formidable headache.

“The difficult decision was made easy once I divided songs era-wise, and since songs of the same era had more or less the same composition, and similar lyrics and were created in the same political scenario, I decided to grade them according to their era,” he says. That’s why the first chapter tackles the pre-partition era followed by a dozen more chapters which mention every kind of patriotic song created in the last 112 years.’

The book’s division is sort of its superpower; if it was divided in a haphazard manner, no one would have found it interesting. That’s why by categorising 13 eras of Pakistan’s history – from 1911 to 2023 – the author has done Pakistanis a huge service. While the first chapter deals with the pre-Independence songs and ends at 1947, the second chapter tackles the new country’s emergence at an international level and everything from the creation of the national anthem to the emergence of Kalam-e-Iqbal where singers from all parts of the country paid tribute to Allama Iqbal by rendering his poems.

The third and fourth chapters cater to the three major incidents that changed the direction Pakistan was moving in; while the first section celebrates the first Constitution of the country implemented in 1956, the second deals with the first Martial Law in the country. The fourth chapter is the best of all chapters as it discusses the 1965 War between Pakistan and India and how the artists of East and West Pakistan joined hands to demoralise the enemy and boost the morale of the nation.

The next chapter celebrates the ceasefire between the two countries as well as the ten years of General Ayub Khan, the country’s first Martial Law Administrator. Then comes the second war between Pakistan and India and despite the best efforts of the showbiz personalities who appeared on TV and Radio to fight the war in their own way, Pakistan lost its East wing forever. The songs mentioned in this chapter as well as the next portray the sentiments of the whole nation who were sad, and angry, but hopeful that normalcy would return and help them to move forward.

The eighth chapter in the book is the one where PTV became the first choice of music composers, singers, and poets as they collaborated to present some of the best songs known to Pakistanis today. There was Sohail Rana’s Main bhi Pakistan hoon, Nisar Bazmi’s Khayal rakhna, and Khalil Ahmed’s Watan ki mitti gawah rehna which were sung by Mohammad Ali Shehki, Alamgir, and Nayyara Noor respectively.

The ninth or last chapter deals with popular songs because after that the book would lose its charm, as patriotic songs lost their charm. How musical bands carried forward the patriotic song legacy is accounted on these pages, and how the arrival of the private channels kickstarted a healthy competition between TV channels. The rest of the book is about the songs created in the last 23 years and apart from a few, none of them are worth a mention here. It might have more to do with the fact that PTV isn’t looked up as the mother institution or that Radio Pakistan is no more on the priority for listeners, but it also has to do with quantity instead of the quality.

What makes this book stand out in the market is its individuality and how it manages to keep itself valid in an era where books are considered old-fashioned. It brings forward war songs from different parts of Pakistan’s history alongside patriotic songs that were launched at the change of government, ahead of the elections as well to celebrate some historic moments. It also mentions the many sports songs created to boost the morale of sportsmen, especially cricketers who won laurels in the field during the 80s and the 90s. While Khalid Waheed’s Hum jeetenge, created ahead of the 1996 World Cup, gets mentioned here alongside Saleem Javed’s World Cup number, you also get to read about Jazba junoon which is now considered a patriotic number, even though it came out as a cricket anthem.

The book also talks about the many collaborations that made PTV different from all the other national TV channels in the area including those in India ― after all, before PTV brought Arif Lohar, Arifa Siddiqui, and the Fateh Brothers Rustam, and Sultan for Mere des main har pal chahon, or before Farida Khanum led the impressive line-up of singers in Hai meri sar zameen roshan, not many had executed it, let alone thought about it. So, if you didn’t know that Ahmed Rushdi was amongst the few singers who were part of the first official rendition of the Qaumi tarana and that Mohammad Ifrahim made Pakistan his home after being mentored by the legendary Mohammad Rafi in India, then you need to be Hartaaned through this compilation.

Interestingly, the author’s favourite three patriotic songs are Munawwar Sultana’s Chand roshan chamakta sitara rahay, Watan ki mitti gawah rehna at second and Mera naam hai Pakistan at number three.

Omair Alavi is a freelance contributor who writes about film, television, and popular culture. All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer