Now I was afraid of the Egyptian custom people. I was alone in my cabin and I was also a first-class passenger. I put on my turban, which was my national headdress in those days. Everyone, even the officers of the boat took me as a “MAHARAJA” and began to pay me respect, an agent of a company asked me if he could help me.
I replied in the” affirmative” and gave him two pounds Egyptian.
He told me that “I would get my luggage at the railway station at 4.30 p.m. “
Even the security officers did not bother me. At 4.30.p.m.my luggage was at the platform. The train left at 5P.M. and reached Cairo railway station at 9 pm.
I had already sent a cable from the boat to the Hotel Continental to reserve a room for me.
From the station, I went to the hotel. At 10 p.m. I phoned my friend, al Sayed Ahmed Hussein al Mahami, who replied that I should come to his Place at once I had also sent him a cable from the boat that I was reaching Alexandria, at about 3 pm But neither he nor any of his partisans were at the port.
He phoned him from my hotel and he told me that he was extremely sorry that he was ill and could not meet me at the port.
At about 10.30 I went to his place -Shareh Rod 36. He was really ill and was in the bed. After customary salams, he began to condemn Pakistan, the Muslim League, and the Qaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah. saying that
“The Indian Muslims had become tools of the British imperialism and would make the whole of Asta slaves of that damn country i.0.England.”
I heard his taunts and abuses for some time and kept quiet.
The reason was that I had been asked by Maulana Azad to reach India as soon as possible. Sardar Ajit Singh who had met both Mr. Nehru and the Maulana wrote to me that they had decided to appoint me as the Indian ambassador to Italy.
The second reason was that all my life I had been working for Indian Independence and I had no notion of Pakistan although I had read something about it in the London Times in the year 1933.
An article had been written by Chaudhri Rahmat Ali in which he explained why the Muslims of India wanted to separate themselves from their Hindu compatriots.
I was not convinced by the arguments Chaudhri had given in his article. I took Chaudhri as an agent of British Imperialism as the Times would never had published such an article in its columns.
Well, that was my position when my friend Sayed Ahmed Hussein was abusing the Muslims of India. It was a great dilemma for me to decide what answer I should give to my friend.
On one side were my family people and on the other side were my personal gains and position. If I had decided to go to Dehli I would have become like many other Muslims an instrument of the Hindus who had no love lost for their Huslin “compatriots”.
I had also very bitter experiences with my Hindu co-workers during my revolutionary life in exile.
Well, I decided to become Pakistani and did my best to refute the silly arguments of my friend. He had been greatly influenced by Nehru and the Mahatma.
These two very personalities had made the whole Arab world enemy of the Indian Muslims. They, the Arabs, believed that Indian Muslims were the bootlickers of the British. To some extent, the Arabs were right in thinking so.
Some of them called Muslim leaders of those days were truly boot lickers. The Muslim masses were made asleep with the “Hashish of religion”. The religion which our religious leaders (the Pirs and Mullah) were teaching us had not the least resemblance with the religion explained in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah, such was also the case of the Arab Muslims.
The discussion went off between us until two in the morning. My ornaments which were based on religious, social, political, and economic points were so convincing that after hearing them my friend cried
“Pakistan Zindabad”
He at once phoned to some news agencies saying that “A Pakistani leader “had arrived in Cairo and was staying in Hotel Continental and if any person wanted to know about Pakistan, he or she could contact him to get his or her doubts removed about it. Nearly all the Cairo Papers published the news.
