World / Pakistani politician sings Saare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Humara

New Delhi: In a video released without much context, founder of Pakistan’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party, Altaf Hussain, can be seen singing ‘saare jahan se accha Hindustan hamara’.

The video posted by news agency ANI shows Hussain singing one of India’s most loved patriotic songs with much vigour.

Altaf Hussain is a fugitive British Pakistani, who had requested asylum from the UK government in the 1990s and later gained its residency.

The MQM is reported to have long dominated the power corridors of Karachi in Pakistan- for as long as three decades.

His party found support largely from Urdu-speaking Muhajirs, the descendants of the Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from India during the partition of 1947.

He is also famously known for open advocacy of respecting the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, the opposition of Taliban and criticism of partition with India.

Meanwhile, the song ‘saare jahan se accha‘ is a patriotic song written in Urdu by poet Muhammad Iqbal in 1904. This song, an ode to Hindustan (India) then soon became an anthem opposing the British Raj in India.

Mahatma Gandhi is said to have sung it over a hundred times when he was imprisoned at Yerawada Jail in Pune in the 1930s. Even after so many years, this song continues to remain one of the most loved patriotic songs.