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Under the auspices of Centre for Community Development, a Get Together was organized by Mr. Abdussalam Puthige, Editor-in-Chief, Vaartha Bharathi Kannada Daily at A.J. International Hotel, Bangalore on 28th June’07.
The Occasion was designed to bring the community leaders together to discuss the measures that need to be taken in order to improve the representation of Muslims in News and Media related activities.
Following a brief welcome address by Mr. S.N.H. Rizvi, President, CCD, Moulana Syed Shabbir Ahmed Nadvi, Trustee, CCD formally introduced Moulana Sayed Salman Nadvi, the Main Speaker and Chief Guest of the evening.
Moulana Salman Nadvi, (Member Executive committee, All India personal law board, Delhi and Professor, Nadvathul Ulama, Lucknow, UP) spoke on the subject, “Mass Media & Responsibilities of the Community in a Plural Society”. He delivered a soul stirring speech of more than 50 minutes. He quoted extensively from the Quranic verses and tried to bring to the fore, the great responsibility Allah SWT has put on the shoulders of Muslims of delivering the message of Islam to the World. He said, while it is enjoined upon the Muslims to deliver Allah’s Message to mankind, the acceptance or rejection of the message is entirely up to the people. In the end Hidaya (Guidance) only comes from Allah.
He said that in this age of Mass-media and communica-tion, the Muslim representation in the form of owning TV Channels, Newspapers and Magazines or even working in the media is so miniscule that despite the best of our intentions we cannot succeed in our effort to convey the message of Islam. He felt that there was a need for muslim owned TV Channels in virtually all big towns and for more and more Newspapers and periodicals to come out in regional languages from smaller towns and cities. He also stressed on the need for more of our people to take up journalism as a career and participate in the process of opinion building. As for the common Muslims, he said the least they can do is to at least buy Muslim owned Newspapers and magazines in order to get informed themselves and even more importantly to support those like Mr. Puthige and others like him who have dared to address this situation by bringing out Newspapers and Magazines.
Following the address by Moulana Sahab, the Presidential address was delivered by Prof. Sheikh Ali (Former VC, Mangalore University and Goa University) in his inimitable style. While paying glowing tribute to the masterful address by Moulana Salman earlier, he reminded the audience that the situation was not so bad during the pre-independence period. He mentioned Moulana Abul Kalam Azad, who at the tender age of 13 years revolutionized the world of print media by becoming the owner /editor of a newspaper by name Al-Insan. There were other newspapers too such as Al-Bulag, Al-Hilal, Zamindar that were edited by Muslims. He said it is time we start producing Journalists such as Moulana Azad and Muhammad Ali Johar, who are able to honestly and fearlessly project the true face of events and happenings as they occur.
Before the conclusion of the event, Mr. Abdus Salam Puthige, of Vaartha Bharathi delivered a speech in Kannanada and followed it up in Urdu. He gave a statistical account of Muslim participation in media and said that out of 750 English newspapers, only one is owned by Muslims and similar is the case with Hindi dailies, where out of 3000, the Muslims only own about five. The same is the state of affair with other regional language newspapers.
Finally the event was concluded with a vote of thanks from Moulana Shabbir Ahmed Nadvi (Trustee CCD). He thanked each and every member on the panel of Speakers and specially mentioned Prof. Sheikh Ali for taking time out to come all the way from Mysore to attend the function despite his poor health.
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