HYDERABAD DIARIES

The speeches delivered at Hyderabad were usually on specific topics, such as The Awakening of the Spirit of Islam, Islam and the Present Age, and The Building up of Society. Under this last heading, it was shown that the doors of progress, contrary to what is generally believed, are wide open to Muslims in this country. It is simply that the particular time and circumstances demand a judicious approach. The fourth topic was the all-important mission of Introducing Islam. In this, special emphasis was laid on the harmonious relationship between Muslims and other communities. At a press conference, I began by touching upon the conditions in the country and specifying the aims of the Islamic Centre (now functioning as CPS International) I established in New Delhi. This was followed by a question-and-answer session of considerable duration, in the course of which I took the opportunity to point out that the image of the Indian Muslim projected by the national press was one-sided. For example, The Times of India calls Indian Muslims a ‘clamorous group’ (January 3, 1987). This is not entirely wrong, because there are a certain number of noisy troublemakers among the Muslims. But the press should refrain from giving them undue prominence and give more coverage to other members of the community who remain busily engaged in some work or the other of a constructive nature. The style of journalism nowadays is largely to blame for this state of affairs. Bad news is known to sell more newspapers than good news! Over and above the meetings at Hyderabad, some were also held at Mahbubnagar. All these assemblies were quite successful, especially since they were well attended by the educated elite. This gave the impression that the intelligentsia had been giving serious thought to the message and mission of the Islamic Centre and AI-Risala. Detailed reports of each day’s speeches and assemblies appeared in local Urdu newspapers such as Rehnuma-eDeccan, Siyasat and Munsif. A reader of Siyasat told me that the headlines which appeared on February 15, 1987, issue of the newspaper ‘The Need for Constructive Thinking Among Indian Muslims’ was entirely due to our centre’s efforts for, otherwise, no such positive headlines on Muslim topics ever appeared in print. One of the places of interest we visited near Mahbubnagar was what appeared to be a small forest of trees but was actually a cluster of offMany are those who fall by the wayside because, failing to appreciate the principle of gradualism, they try to achieve success in one gigantic leap.