Mile Sur Mera Tumhara &Ndash; Song of Integration

“Ek Sur” (One Tune) or “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” is an Indian video showcasing unity in diversity or national integration of the nation. The song was composed by Louis Banks and Late P. Vaidyanathan, written by Piyush Pandey. The song was recorded by a group of people from all walks of life, including popular musicians, sports persons, movie stars, etc. The National Integration video instilled sense of pride and promoted unity amongst Indians, highlighting different communities and societies that live in India. The song was created in 1988 by Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad and promoted by Doordarshan and Ministry of Information. The song was telecast for the first time on Independence Day 1988, after the telecast of Prime Minister’s speech at the Red Fort.

The song’s lyrics are unique. Mile Sur has only one phrase repeated in 14 Indian languages that goes like: “Mile sur mera tumhara, to sur bane humara”, meaning “When my tune and your tune merge, it becomes our tune”. The song captivated millions of hearts maintaining near-anthem status ever since. The languages used in the song in order of the appearance are Hindi, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, Assamese, Oriya, Gujarati and Marathi. People featured (not in order of appearance) in the video are Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Tanvir Ashai, Kamal Hasan, K. R. Vijaya, Revathi, Waheeda Rahman, Hema Malini, Tanuja, Sharmila Tagore, Shabana Azmi, Deepa Sahi, Om Puri, Dina Pathak, Meenakshi Seshadri, Mallika Sarabhai, Mario Miranda, Narendra Hirwani, S Venkataraghavan, Prakash Padukone, Ramanathan Krishnan, Arun Lal, P K Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Syed Kirmani, Leslie Claudius, Gurbaksh Singh, Pratap Pothen, A V Ramanan, Mrinal Shah, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Annadashankar Ray, Bhimsen Joshi, M Balamuralikrishna, Lata Mangeshkar, Suchitra Mitra. The song ends with the final notes of the National Anthem of India.