Public Talks in Rural India - An Indispensable Endeavour I still remember 3 years ago, when the daaees (Islamic preachers) from the rural districts of karnataka, India, used to invite me to address the masses in their villages and districts. Back then I was a little reluctant to travel and reach the districts where I assumed the masses to be less intellectual and unlettered. Though travelling is something that I liked to do, I still refrained from travelling long distance to give talks; I wonder what made me feel weary at the first thought itself. Moreover, I preferred to give talks in the cities where the educated class was my target audience; like a sophisticated daaee speaking English to the English masses. Just 2 years ago, it so happened that the dawah centres of karnataka formed an association called the Karnataka Dawah Centres Association, which aimed at organising public talks in the rural districts of karnataka, while addressing the masses in the vernacular language, i.e Kannada. Though English is not my mother tongue, it surely got into my system so much so that, English is the language that I speak the maximum in any given day, unless Im on travel. The challenge now is that the talks in rural districts were to be given in kannada language, the language that I had learnt in my schools days as the third language; and it was almost 15 years without touch. I had to quickly master the language to face the challenge. Guess what, kannada dictionaries, kannada translation of the meanings of the Noble Quran, old - black and white kannada movies and other literatures in kannada were starting to pour into my home. By the way, the old kannada movies were for hearing the phonetics; not for viewing. I had to do it to become a kannada public speaker overnight. All prasies be to Allah, I was successful in preparing profoundly effective kannada talks. The organisers in the rural districts invited the Hindu Pandits, Christian pastors, politicians, educationists and the famous men to share the dais with me. In some of the districts the newspapers carried the adverts of the events too. In other places the auto-rickshaws with loud speakers went around the villages with the news of the public talks. The roadside corners had hoardings of the pictures of various religious identities sharing the dais on a common theme - Shanthiya Sandesha (Message of Peace). All the promotions and adverts were thoroughly in kannada. Believe me, I was speechless at the turnout. In every such program organised in the rural districts, we happened to see thousands attend every event; non-Muslims attended in huge proportions. And the audience there is not like the restless and busy city audience. They were attentive from the beginning of the event, until the last talk of the event. Non-Muslims had no inhibitions in attending the events since the pamphlets had the images of their religious leaders too; and that the theme was also general. The masses were very happy to receive the message of Islam in their language. In all these events, the KDCA was successful in sharing the knowledge of the purpose of life, Tawheed (oneness of Allah), Risaalath (Prophethood), Aakhirath (Hereafter) and the Quran. In some places we had question and answer sessions too. The events were recorded and then uploaded on youtube, made into DVDs and circulated in the cities too. The local newspapers covered the events; and it had a great impact on the people of karnataka. The good thing about the villages and the rural districts of India is that the people love talking and chatting of the local events. Hence all our events were multi-times relayed by the chatting masses who attended our public talks; and disseminated the message far and wide. Many amongst the audience voluntarily embraced Islam too. In the longer run, we even happened to sense that the events in the rural districts had invariably affected the people in the urban districts. Thats because the family roots of most people living in urban cities are connected to their native lands of rural India. Hence the impact is inevitable. This formula would surely work in every rural district of India inshaaAllaah. If every state works in reaching its people while sharing the message in their vernacular language, then theres no doubt of the positive impact Bi-Iznillaah (by the permission of Allah). My advice: To all my dear readers; now that you have heard the success story, what are you waiting for? Just do it :)
Posted on: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:50:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015