ONE day in November 1936, Bung Karno received a letter. This was back when communications were limited, and the letter had been sent from someone in Bandung by ship to Kupang, West Timor, and from there by air to Ende, where Bung Karno had been exiled.

The letter was from a friend. He said that the daily newspaper Pemandangan had printed a small news item: Bung Karno had established a branch of Ahmadiyah and had become an “Ahmadiyah propagandi