Capability and Alertness

Addressing the Press A Press Conference given by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, President of the Islamic Centre, Delhi, in Hyderabad, South India, on November 12, 1982. Our meeting today is not a press conference in the normal sense of the term. Press conferences usually discuss public issues and, as you know, we have no such issue before us. This is really a sort of journalistic meeting. As part of the Islamic Centre’s programme for constructive work, we seek to communicate our message to every section of the community. So our colleagues thought it would be a good idea for it to be communicated to our friends of the press as well. For the press is, in our day and age, like the public’s eye, with which they see; it is like the public’s mind with which they think. Although journalism is not very advanced in our country, still—in theory at least—the press is the greatest power in the modern age. In western countries the press has become an independent force, parallel to governments. If the press in these countries turns against a president or prime minister, then its opposition cannot be ignored. The political eclipse of Richard Nixon in 1973 provides us with example of the power of the press in Western countries. But, if you will permit me, I would like to say that the power of the press has not yet been channelled in the right direction. Man today holds this power in his grasp, but as yet it has not been effectively implemented for the improvement of the mankind. I will clarify this point with one example: Imagine that the plane I came from Delhi on belonged to Israel or America, and I hijacked it and made it land in Hyderabad. Then, if any press conference was announced, it would be much bigger one than that which has now come together. Correspondents of foreign newspapers would have rushed from Delhi to Hyderabad so that they could cover it; despite the fact that, we all know, there is nothing more futile than hijacking an aeroplane. But this is what journalism in our day is all about. That which is totally unimportant in the world of reality assumes the highest importance in the world of journalism. Why? Simply because it contains what in journalistic jargon is called news value. During a recent journey I stopped over for a while in the Ugandan airport of Antebbe. On seeing it, I recalled that this was the place