The Qadian Diary — Page 68
Hazrat Mirza Bashir Ahmad 54 Towards the end I must again request you to kindly give your personal and immediate attention to this matter and thereby lay under obligation an important and world-wide community. (This letter has so far remained unanswered). Editorial note Published in Pakistan Times, Lahore in its issue of 4th October 1947. QADIAN Many people still believe that much of the misery brought about by the present mass exodus of populations could have been avoided if people had stuck to their homes and braved all dangers. The Governments of India and East Punjab have repeatedly expressed their abhorrence of forcible eviction and have repeatedly pledged themselves to protect all those members of the minorities who wanted to stay. The people of Qadian decided to provide a test case and stayed. And the Government of East Punjab appear to be emerging out of this test as abjectly as can be imagined. If Qadian has to some extent been spared the savageries that have been perpetrated elsewhere, it is due to its well-knit community organisation. With all its record of unqualified loyalty and ungrudging service to the Government established by law, the Ahmadiyya community is now threatened from a quarter from which it was least prepared to expect trouble. Besides its own population, Qadian has given shelter to 50,000 Muslims from the surrounding villages who have been fed and accommodated now for a month. This has resulted in the depletion of food stocks at Qadian and, to make matters worse, the authorities have demanded that people possessing more than a very limited quantity of food-grains should surrender their reserves on pain