"Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua" (
Urdu: لب پہ آتی ہے دعا; also known as "Bachche Ki Dua"), is a duʿā or prayer, in
Urdu verse authored by
Muhammad Iqbal in 1902.[1] The dua is recited in morning school assembly almost universally in
Pakistan,[2][3] and in Urdu-medium schools in
India.[4][5]
The song has long been sung in the private
The Doon School in
Dehradun, India, in a secular morning assembly ritual.[6] The Imam of the
Jama Masjid, Delhi, Muhibullah Nadwi, recited it as a boy in an English-medium primary school in India in the 1940s.[7] Even earlier, the prayer was broadcast by
All India Radio,
Lucknow, a few months after Iqbal's death in 1938.[8] The prayer has also been interpreted by an all-women's American
bluegrass music band,
Della Mae, which toured Islamabad and Lahore in Pakistan in 2012.[9]
In October 2019, a headmaster of a government-run primary school in
Pilibhit,
Uttar Pradesh, India, was suspended by the district education authorities following complaints by two
Hindu nationalist organizations (
Vishwa Hindu Parishad and
Bajrang Dal) that the song, which was being recited in the school's morning assembly, was [sic] a "
madrasa prayer."[10] Ali was later reinstated but transferred to another school.[11]