Dear Pervez Sahib,

First of all my sincere compliments for projecting Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's rare interview that shows his foresight and political acumen.

Maulana Azad was a scholar of prophetic vision. After reading his interview it is quite clear that this extraordinary man could see in the future. Himself  a  devout and committed Muslim, he discarded the creed of communalism , firmly holding on to the unshakable belief that it was more ruinous to the sublime cause of Islam as well as to the Muslims of India. His words echo as absolute and irrefutable facts borne out by the events that took place in the aftermath of the partition of Indian into two states in 1947.

To steadfastly stand by his convictions and under the burgeoning fear of being declared a detractor of Muslims or an heretic,  speaks for the sanctity and validity of his outlook. He was dubbed as pro Congress Muslim leader. But in fact while he was an enlightened and secular Muslim, he was on the right side of history in relation to the future of Indian Muslims.

He rightly  asserted that Muslims under no circumstances would disclaim or drop the demand of  Pakistan which  got an impetus after 1940. The Muslim League based its political campaigning on  slogan of “Hate Hindus”, which was more in the nature of communalism that an earnest service for Islam. Ordinary Muslims were swept along the religious slogans that painted the Muslims in India as a suppressed class and would-be victims of the mal-treatment of the Hindu majority.

But as we can see after independence, in the Indian federation, even Muslims have been in the government and at least two Muslims were the president of India. What was the most bleak and harmful dimension of the creation of a land of for Muslims on the premises of the religious bigotry is that though the Muslims in Pakistan or in Bangladesh  might feel physically secure or follow religion freely, their counterparts in India have become the guinea pigs for the Muslim  Leaders myopic zeal for a separate Muslim states.

The moot point can be raised that what the Indian Muslim minority was suffering as the hands of fanatic Hindu organization, the entire Muslim population in an undivided India could also have met the same fate. But my answer is that the communal hatred that we wittiness in some volatile parts of India such as Gujarat was also the fallout of the Hindu Muslim enmity and that was whipped by the Muslim League to win Pakistan.

Maulana Azad had given correct predictions about the shape of future with regard to Pakistan and the  rest of his premonitions are unfolding  with  the time passage. In Pakistan that was created to protect Islam is fractious and has become the most dangerous place to practice Islam. and The Muslims are divided so sharply along sectarian lines and busy in fratricidal genocides that Islamic unity seems to be in a shambles.

Saeed Qureshi

Dallas Texas