At moments when those who claim to lead the people have become determined to sell the people to such anti-people parties as those which opposed the Pakistan Movement, the jihad in Kashmir and the movements for social equality, there is a dire need for a voice of truth to rise from somewhere which can unveil this impure conspiracy by warning the people.
One such voice of truth is provided from the pages of our history by the distinguished communist journalist, writer and activist Abdullah Malik, the centenary year of whose birth is being celebrated in 2020-2021 and who wrote an unposted letter to the founder and leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Maududi, during the former’s pilgrimage to Makkah in the winter of 1973. This unposted letter forms a small part of Malik’s Hajj travelogue titled Hadees-e-Dil (Hadith of the Heart), which I am translating into English at the moment. It is recorded by Malik under the heading ‘A Letter Which Was Not Posted’ and gives a revealing expose of the Jamaat’s politics of surveillance and spying against its opponents – even during as holy an occasion as the Hajj, at the height of the Cold War and worldwide anti-communist hysteria.
The letter itself is preceded by Malik’s journal entry on January 29, as well as another preamble to the letter, giving the context of why he chose to write it. This material is being presented here in print for the very first time in the original English translation on Maulana Maududi’s 42nd death anniversary today, in the hope that readers of this valuable letter will be grateful to Malik for setting the record straight on the politics of such an influential right-wing voice in the country, and that too at a critical turn in our national history:
