Monday, November 09, 2015 – IQBAL is part of our national psyche. In a sense, he defines our national persona, and he has been owned by our state as one of its founding fathers. His lucid and easy to understand Urdu verses are used frequently by politicians, students, and musicians to illustrate or reinforce their points. This popular resonance of Iqbal’s poetry is part of our living national heritage.
Yet Iqbal has not yet fully become part of our collective consciousness the way he could have. The reason is that we revere him but our adulatory sublimations conceal his real messages.