Apna desh hai apna desh hai apna desh
Posted on: February 9, 2025
This article is written by Arunkumar Deshmukh, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today’s song is from a controversial film of the 1949-Apna Desh.
The film was made by Rajkamal kala Mandir, Bombay and V Shantaram had directed it for his own banner. The story, dialogues, Screenplay and Lyrics were by Dewan Sharar. Music was by a new entrant- S.Purushottam. The cast included Pushpa Huns, Umesh Sharma, Man Mohan Krishna, Keshav Rao Datey, Krishna Dayal, Parshuram, Dewan Sharar and others.
In 1947, India was divided into two countries. The Partition was a sad and torturous experience for the people on Borders and created thousands of Refugees on both sides. Thousands of families were separated and almost a million died during the Riots. No wonder that this provided inspiration to the film industry to make films on this topic-the event and its aftermath. Some Hindi commercial films based on the trauma of partition were made, like Lahore-49, Apna Desh-49, Firdaus-53, Nastik-54, Chhalia-60, Amar rahe ye pyar-61 and Dharmaputra-61. Three of these films revolved around tales of women abducted in the aftermath of partition..
APNA DESH-1949 was a brilliant film made by V.Shantaram, famous for making offbeat, socially relevant films. He made this film which was distributed all over India and in Ceylon as well. Within a few days, the film came under severe criticism and there were cries of banning the film. Baburao Patel, with his acidic style dubbed this film as Anti-National. In several cities, the film shows had to be cancelled due to Mob troubles.
What was there in this film to invoke such a reaction ? This was a story of a Punjabi Hindu woman-Mohini. During riots of partition, she is abducted and raped in Pakistan by Muslims. Her family escapes to India. After some time a devastated Mohini returns to India. Her family and the society refuse to accept her. She is insulted and thrown out. in vengeance of this rejection, she decides to become a smuggler. She sends clothes and arms to Pakistan in exchange for Gold and Money. She falls in love with another refugee, Satish. Finally, the secret is revealed. Satish is arrested and accused of smuggling. Mohini comes out and surrenders. She is arrested. End of the film !
Most Indians felt that Indian women will never react in this way. They would rather commit suicide. The film was even called ”Apna Trash”. Almost every newspaper viz The Times, The Hindu, The patriot etc condemned the film as Anti national. 1949 was also the period when Pakistan had infiltrated the army and Tribesmen in Kashmir. This had already created an Anti-Pakistani feeling in the country. Under the barrage of opposition, the film was forced to be withdrawn from the Theatres, not because of any legal reasons, but because of commercial considerations.
I have not seen this film. The simple reason was that Shantaram’s films were rated very low on entertainment, as they were films with social causes. By the time I realised the film’s importance, the film was withdrawn and I could never see it. As such, from 1947 onwards and especially in 1949, so many musical films were released that Shantaram’s films were low on priority. The film details, background, contents and the aftermath of this remarkable film can be found in ” Mourning the Nation-Indian Cinema in the wake of Partition’, a book by Bhaskar Sarkar as well as in ” Violent Belongings, Partition, gender and National Culture” another book by Kavita Daiyya.
One interesting point about Apna Desh 1949 was that Shantaram had given the work of Music composition of this film to a Newcomer-Purushottam. PURUSHOTTAM SOLANKURKAR or S. Purushottam ( 9-4-1919 to 30-1-1958 ) was from Kolhapur district. Born in a poor family, he was the youngest of three brothers. The eldest brother was a good singer under Abdul Kareem Khan. The middle one had his ” Yashwant Sangeet Vidyalaya” in Kolhapur. Purushottam was a student of Vidyapeeth School. Bereft of higher education, Purushottam started learning to play various instruments, Violin, Sarangi, Harmonium and Tabla.
When he was 21 years of age, he started playing in the concerts of Kumar Gandharva aka Shivaputra Siddaramaiah Komkali- as an accompanist. Vasant Desai-who was a ‘de facto’ Talent Hunter for V.Shantaram ( he had already discovered Promodini and Vinodini Desai and Vatsala Kumthekar) spotted him in one Mehfil and called him to Bombay. Shantaram gave him his brother’s film ” Bhool”-48 and Maharashtra Chitravani’s film Mere Laal-48 as a Music Director.
He was an excellent singer himself and had a very good voice. Noted composer Sudhir Phadke, who was his classmate in school, used to praise his singing, but Purushottam never sang any film song in his career, except one song in film Apna Desh-1949. He believed that his job was to compose music and not singing.
Impressed with his style, Shantaram gave him his revolutionary film ‘Apna Desh’-49. True to his salt, Purushottam presented 2 Ghazals of Ghalib,’ Koi umeed nahi hain” and Dil e naadan in a totally non-traditional tune and style. The Tamil and Telugu versions of this film were also done by Purushottam. Vasant Kumari sang Tamil songs and Telugu songs were sung by Beauty Queen Surya Kumari. Later Shantaram gave ‘ Dahej’-50 to Vasant Desai and Purushottam.
Discarded, without reason, as was his habit, by Shantaram, Purushottam did Devyani-52 and Durga Khote’s Sandesh-52. In all he did 6 Hindi films and 2 Marathi films as Music Director. Realising that he had no scope in films anymore, Purushottam returned to Kumar Gandharva once again as his accompanist. Thus he disappeared from the film line and there was no trace of him afterwards. One more name was added to less known and forgotten composers’ list ! (Some information used herein is from Marathi Sangeetkar kosh, with thanks.)
Today’s song is sung by Man Mohan Krishna, who had made his debut as an actor and singer in Shantaram’s film ” Matwala Shayar Ramjoshi “-1947, in which he had sung 10 songs out of the total 16 songs.
MANMOHAN KRISHNA CHADDHA was born on 11-8-1908, at Lahore in Punjab. He was a very studious person and always stood first in school. He completed his M.Sc. in Physics and started working as a Physics lecturer in a Lahore college. He was very fond of singing and also sang on Lahore Radio. Once when V. Shantaram visited Lahore, he heard Manmohan’s singing on stage and was impressed. Shantaram offered him the lead role in his forthcoming film, “Matwala Shair Ramjoshi”-1947, In this film Manmohan sang 7 solos and 3 duets with Zohrabai Ambalewali. However, his first song as a playback singer was in Shantaram’s film, ” Jeewan Yatra”-1946, under Vasant Desai’s baton.
In his career of more than 40 years, he acted in 183 films and directed 1 film – Noorie-1979. He also sang 24 songs in 8 films, namely Jeewan Yatra-46, Matwala Shayar Ramjoshi-47, Andhon ki duniya-47, Apna Desh-49, Afsar-50, Aaram-51, Railway Platform-55 and Shehar aur Sapna-1963. During his stay in Bombay, he anchored a Radio show ” Cadbury’s Phulwari” in the 50’s.
Manmohan Krishna was connected with Indian Peoples Theatre i.e. IPTA and acted in few of their dramas. Being an educated person, he was impressed with Nehruvian Secularism. He worked in films like Shehar aur Sapna by K. A.Abbas as well as the first Indo-Soviet film Pardesi-1957. He also got the Film Fare award for playing the role of Abdul Chacha in the film Dhool ka Phool-64. A song in this film ” Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega ” shot on him, became very popular.
Being a member of the intelligentia, he could not sell himself nor gel into the Hindi filmi world fully. He always fought against injustice. He established ‘ Yuvak Biradari ‘ for young Indians, which became a big organisation in due course.
He was a favourite of the Chopra Brothers and acted in most films made by them. Some of his famous films were Deewar, Trishul, Humraaz, Insaaf ka Tarazu, Joshila, Kanoon, Kala Pathar, Dhool ka phool, Waqt, Naya Daur etc. etc. He also worked in 12 Punjabi films. He was prominently spotted in any role due to his thick bushy eyebrows.
In Hindi films, he rarely got a hero’s role, barring few films, because of his ordinary look. He had no looks required for a Hero’s role in a commercial film, in those days. He was of course an excellent Character Artiste. Due to his nature, he kept away from Filmi parties and groupism. He had no real friends in the film industry. Manmohan krishna did not keep good health in his last few years and died at the age of 82 years, in Lokmanya Tilak Hospital, Bombay, on 3-11-1990.
( Based on some information from wiki, ‘Beete kal ke sitare’ by Shriram Tamrakar,muVyz, HFGK and my notes. Thanks to all.)
Let us enjoy this 76 year old song now….
Editor’s note: With this song, all the eight songs of “Apna Desh”(1949) have been covered. “Apna Desh”(1949) thus gets YIPPEED in the blog. HFGK mentions 9 songs for this movie. But songs on serial numbers 7 and 9 mentioned in HFGK are one and the same despite their mukhdas being different. So in effect the movie only has eight songs and all the songs are now covered.
Song- Apna Desh hai Apna Desh hai apna Desh (Apna Desh)(1949) Singer- Manmohan Krishna, Lyricist- Dewan Sharar, MD- S Purushottam
Chorus
Lyrics
ham sab mil kar ise
apni izzat aur aabroo kee tarah sambhaalenge
aur waqt aane par
apni jaan dekar bhee iskee raksha karen
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai aaj se
dab rahe thhe laaj se
apna desh hai aaj se
dab rahe the laaj se
doosron ke raaj se
unke takht o taaj se
unke takht o taaj se
kat gaya hai ab kalesh
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apne desh ke hain ham
apne desh ke hain ham
iske aage sar hai kham
iske aage sar hai kham
iske choom len kadam
kah ke vande matram
kah ke vande matram
vande vande matram
vande vande matram
jai ho jai ho desh
desh apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
ae sipaahi
ae sawaar
ae sipaahi ae sawaar
ae javaan au jaan nisaar
ae javaan au jaa nisaar
ae kisaan au kaamgaar
ae kisaan au kaamgaar, savdhan hoshiyaar
hoshiyaar
tera desh hai ab to desh
tera desh hai ab to desh
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
ab kisi ka dar na kar
ab kisi ka dar na kar
dar na kar
utha tu sar
utha tu sar
ae sher e nar, ae sher e nar
tu hai naresh
ae sher e nar tu hai naresh
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
apna desh hai
apna desh hai
apna desh
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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