Bhopal, May 28: They make a strange pair: one a pro-BJP Muslim poet ready to genuflect before Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the other a Hindu scholar who wrote Pakistan’s first national anthem.

They have now combined to embarrass the BJP by reviving the ghost of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Babri demolition.

An article in the state-run Urdu academy’s magazine Tamsil has quoted Jagannath Azad, who was commissioned by Jinnah to write Pakistan’s anthem, as saying the Ayodhya demolition was a “cowardly and lowly act”.

It quotes another Urdu scholar, Malick Ram, as saying the demolition proved Jinnah’s two-nation theory right.

The comments, published by a government-run institution headed by a BJP loyalist, would bring back for the party memories of Advani’s unexpected praise of Jinnah just a week before that tumultuous event’s anniversary.

The Madhya Pradesh Urdu Academy is headed by poet Bashir Badr, who has angered Muslims and Urdu literary circles for his links with the BJP and liking for fellow poet Vajpayee.

At Badr’s home, the first thing that strikes a visitor is a framed photograph of the poet touching Vajpayee’s feet. Of late, Badr has courted more controversy by boasting that his poetry is superior to the works of Mir and Ghalib, and suggesting he was good enough to play the role of a prophet.

Hours after the magazine hit the market, Badr was looking for cover. He said he was not a “proof reader” and couldn’t be expected to scan each and every word printed in the literary magazine. He also claimed that the article was sent to press long before he took over as academy chief in June 2005.

But academy insiders said the work on the special issue, dedicated to Azad who died last year, was done between April and September 2005. Azad is considered the ultimate authority on the poet Iqbal while Malick Ram’s commentary on Ghalib is viewed as most authentic.

Azad, who lived in Pakistan when Partition happened, wrote its national anthem in a few days after the request from Jinnah. It was quickly approved.

Soon, Azad migrated to India, where he worked for the Press Information Bureau. He was later appointed professor emeritus at Jammu and Kashmir University. The anthem continued to be used for 18 months till, after Jinnah’s death, the Pakistan government decided it needed a new one.

The magazine article by former Urdu academy chief and Congress leader Aziz Qureshi says: “It happened in New Delhi’s Shastri Bhavan on December 6 (1992). Even the liftman was witness to it. Azad said he was ashamed by the lowly deed attributed to the majority community while Malick termed the Babri demolition as a ‘naked act of barbarism’.”

The minister in charge of the academy, Rustam Singh, said it seemed a serious matter. “I will look into it,” he said.