Hafeez Jalandhari: Urdu Poetry, Partition Era Struggles, and His Lasting Legacy

Hafeez Jalandhari’s life sings across borders, religions, and the entire sweep of twentieth-century South Asian history. Born as Muhammad Hafeez in Jalandhar in 1900, his journey is not simply a poet’s story; it is the audacious drama of a soul that rose above hardship to inspire millions across divides.

Through an undaunted spirit, Hafeez wove Urdu’s most celebrated verses, including an anthem for a new nation, hymns to old gods, conversations with longing, and messages of hope for divided hearts. His legacy is as much in what he wrote as in how he lived, rising and falling and refusing to quit, ever the youthful voice whispering, “Abhi to mein jawan hoon” (I am still young).

Childhood Sparks: The Boy Who Defied Failure

Not every day, a child turns adversity into art, but Hafeez Jalandhari did just that. Born into modest means and growing up in the vibrant lanes of Jalandhar, his formal education did not last beyond primary school. He struggled particularly with mathematics, failing multiple times and finally leaving school behind, a decision that in later years would be both a source of jokes and quiet pride in his autobiography.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who boasted long academic records, Hafeez found his teachers in the streets, in life, and in the sturdy rhythms of language itself. Inspired by the great Persian poet Ghulam Qadir Girami, young Hafeez wrote his first couplet by age seven. Though punished by a stern teacher, he was quietly encouraged by another, Master Gopal Das, who glimpsed the rare gift in the boy.

Gopal Das pushed him onto the poetry stage, forcing him into a mushaira, a government poetry contest during World War I. To everyone’s surprise, 17-year-old Hafeez wrote a poem on war and peace, and it won first prize: a gold medal and a princely sum of one hundred rupees. Amidst these small victories lay the seeds of something timeless, a poet choosing words over walls, finding shelter in rhyme and reason when the world seemed too much to bear.

Trials and Triumphs: Struggles and Untold Resilience

Hafeez’s growth as a poet was anything but linear. In his late teens, after a quick marriage and with the weight of a growing family, he juggled jobs: railway worker, perfume seller, tailor, contractor, porter, and even flour vendor, each profession reflecting an untold chapter of his resilience. For years, his poetry bought him little more than fleeting applause and bumpy travel.

At a point of nadir, he even contemplated ending his life in Kashmir’s hills after yet another failed business. But nature’s beauty saved him, and the thought that “Abhi to mein jawan hoon” would not let him go. That same line later shaped his most enduring, life-affirming poem. Even though jail could not quell his verses, he was imprisoned in 1919 for penning a protest poem against British rule.

Desperate yet undeterred, Hafeez tried launching a literary magazine with his mentor Girami. The effort failed, leaving him deeper in debt and heartbreak. Yet, instead of bitterness, these scars fostered depth in his poetry, lines that carried the ache of the subcontinent’s hope and loss, division and longing.

When he reached Lahore, the city’s literary circles embraced him. Through nights of verses and rivalry, his name grew. Lahore’s poetic giants, like Pitras Bukhari and Abdul Majeed Salik, took him into their fold, catapulting the school dropout into a celebrated national figure. Every defeat, job, and rejection became the ink that filled his pen.

The Unheard Stories: Friendships, Failures, and Fortitude

Behind Hafeez’s public glory lived stories that rarely graced newspaper columns. He was known to sell his own ghazals to struggling young poets, a secret transaction of hope between the master and the aspiring. In his autobiography, “Baqalam Khud” (unfinished though it was), he reveals envy, jealousy, and the loneliness accompanying accolades.

Friends recall how Hafeez would quietly sponsor poetry events, give away his prize money to those in need, and never let his fame change his fundamentally humble demeanour. Those who worked with him said his words “flowed like a river, easily showing deep emotion”, both in praise for his country and in gentle poems about love and longing.

More than once, his house became a haven for wandering writers and troubled souls, a refuge where verse was both shield and sword. Perhaps the most incredible untold story is of Hafeez’s emotional stamina, how he outlived every storm, reemerging more celebratory, forgiving, and more in love with life than before.

Celebrating Pluralism: The Poet Who Sang of All Gods

In an age ripped apart by religious division and Partition’s wounds, Hafeez Jalandhari’s poetry dared to imagine a South Asia joined by song, not hate. Though a devout Muslim, he wrote luminous verses praising Lord Krishna and Lord Ram, boldly proclaiming that beauty, love, and the divine cannot be shackled by identity. His ode to Krishna remains a standout, filled with spiritual longing and respect for all faiths.

To write such poems after the trauma of 1947 was more than a literary feat; it was moral resistance, a call for harmony in a world bent on discord. The wisdom in his lines is clear: compassion and empathy are not the monopoly of any creed, but every human’s shared right. Hafeez’s work is both an invitation and a challenge to see unity in diversity, the hidden kinship beneath outward difference.

Even today, as lines harden across the subcontinent, Hafeez’s poems whisper of pluralism, not just as cultural tolerance, but as “a necessity in this shared human experience.” Nowhere does this hope resound more brightly than in his anthem for Pakistan, but the spirit of his vision was always larger than politics or borders.

Writings That Change Lives: From Epic Verse to Anthem

Hafeez Jalandhari’s literary legacy stands on many pillars, lyrical masterpieces like “Shahnama-e-Islam,” which recasts Islamic history with the epic grandeur of the Persian “Shahnameh”; soul-stirring geets and ghazals full of pathos and hope; bold nazms voicing the aspirations of a new generation; and, above all, the words to Pakistan’s national anthem.

“Pak Sarzameen Shad Bad,” adopted in 1954, still resounds as a call to unity. Yet, Hafeez remained a poet of the people, never confined by role or reward. His most popular verses, like “Abhi To Mein Jawan Hoon”, found their way into songs sung by legendary voices, lighting up the hopes of youth and elders alike.

His collections, “Naghmat-e-Raz,” “Soz-o-Saz,” “Shahnama-e-Islam”, remain staples in Urdu literature, their themes echoing across decades. Hafeez wrote not to shock, but to inspire; not to divide, but to help readers survive and seek beauty even in adversity. Even today, poetry lovers across India, Pakistan, and beyond recite his verses, rediscovering their own stories in his words.

Legacy of Light: The Poet Who Taught Us to Dream Again

What sets Hafeez Jalandhari apart is the scale of his achievements and the unique way his life story continues to stir readers and artists today. Having lived through Partition, sorrow, and glory, Hafeez wrote from a place of empathy, casting his words as bridges over troubled waters. His poetry events drew crowds; his helpfulness uplifted the lost; his humility, as remembered by all, remained untouched by fame.

Even decades after he died in 1982, he is still spoken of as Urdu’s soulful voice, a poet whose legacy keeps asking us: What does it mean to be truly human? His anthem breathes unity, his unpublished lines counsel kindness, and his poems on pluralism ring more actual than ever, making each generation a little braver, a little kinder, and a little more willing to dream. Hafeez Jalandhari’s story tells every struggling artist: “Life is too beautiful to leave unfinished. Write on, for the world still waits for hope”.

Also Read: Sahir Hoshiarpuri: A River of Poetry and Resilience

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