Fazl-e-Umar — Page 185
Fazle Umar 185 and promote the interests of the Muslims of Kashmir. They had recourse to devices like picketing on the borders of the State and endeavoured to persuade the Muslims of the State to adopt measures that were more spectacular than helpful. They succeeded in persuading some members of the Committee that there should be a change in the presidency of the Committee. The Khalifatul Masih had, throughout, been anxious that the presidency of the Committee should not become a matter of controversy or conflict. He had taken care that nothing should be done that might be relied on to lend colour to anything of the kind to which the Ahrar leadership began to have recourse later. But when he perceived that despite all his care the Ahrar leadership was behaving in a manner that could occasion serious prejudice to the interests of the Muslims of Kashmir, he decided not to continue his presidency of the Committee beyond the end of the second year. On his resignation Dr Sir Muhammad Iqbal was elected President of the Committee. The Khalifatul Masih directed the Ahmadi workers of the Committee and the Ahmadi lawyers who provided advice and aid free of charge to the Muslims of the State to continue the work in full cooperation with the Committee. But the withdrawal of the Khalifatul Masih from the presidency of the Committee seems to have extinguished the spirit of the Committee and gradually all life departed from it. On one occasion before his resignation from the presidency of the Kashmir Com- mittee the Khalifatul Masih met Chaudhri Afzal Haq, President of Majlis Ahrar. In the course of the conversation Chaudhri Afzal Haq told the Khalifatul Masih that as the Community had opposed him in the elections to the Punjab Legislative Council, the Ahrar had determined to crush the Movement. The Khalifatul Masih pointed out that the Movement claimed to have been founded under Divine direction. If this claim was true, as surely it was, neither the Ahrar nor any other organisation, or combination of organisations nor any government would have the power to crush it.