SYED KHALID HUSSAIN is a senior journalist based in Singapore. Originally from India, he has 47 years of experience in English and Urdu journalism in India, the UAE and Singapore. Starting his journalistic career with Radiance way back in 1977, he progressed to work for reputed news agencies, newspapers, and electronic media in all these countries. In an interview with MOHD NAUSHAD KHAN, he said, “As for pluralism, inclusiveness, and communal and religious harmony, India can learn a lot from Singapore.”
Please tell us about your experience with Radiance?
Inspired by my eldest brother’s successful journalistic career and advised by my father, I joined Radiance in April 1977 when it resumed publication following the lifting of a ban imposed during the Emergency.
Aged 22 and an undergraduate, I was initially tasked with dispatching the paper to the subscribers. However, realising my aptitude for and interest in journalism, then-editor Syed Ameenul Hasan Rizvi transferred me to the proofreading section in September of that year.
During those days, the Radiance office was housed in a three-storey haveli tucked away in the narrow lanes of Baradari Sher Afgan, Ballimaran. Its workforce consisted of just over a dozen staff, about half of them journalists.
As I got down to work, I started getting exposed to several burning national and international issues, especially those concerning Indian Muslims, such as communal riots, the minority character of Aligarh Muslim University, Muslim Personal Law, Urdu and Muslims’ bid to find a respectable place in the political dispensation that had emerged after the victory of the Janata Party alliance in the first post-Emergency general election.
Consequently, I started writing in Radiance. My first article was on the issue of communal riots in India, followed by a piece on Pakistan’s nuclear programme and some on other subjects. This is how my journalistic career took off.
How would you like to describe your journalistic career so far? What is your area of interest?
Having learned the basics of writing and analytical skills, I looked for a better opportunity. Finally, after graduating from Delhi University in 1980, I joined POT (Public Opinion Trends) Analyses and News Service in Green Park, New Delhi as a sub-editor on its Pakistan & Afghanistan Desk. POT was owned and operated by renowned journalist and South Asia expert Rajendra Sareen. During my four-year stint at POT, I developed a better worldview and a broader outlook on the global events of that time, with a special focus on South Asia. This boosted my interest in daily newspaper journalism and, consequently, in January 1985, I joined The Times of India’s newly launched Jaipur edition as a sub-editor in-charge of the edit page.
A highly debatable issue then in India was the Shah Bano case. As the legal battle involved an old, divorced Muslim woman seeking monthly maintenance from her remarried Muslim husband, it generated tremendous interest in the media, with senior writers as well as rookies expressing their opinions freely on the issue.
As most non-Muslims favoured the controversial SC ruling, in which Shah Bano had won the right to alimony from her husband against Shariah, I felt alone in the newsroom to defend the Shariah position on the subject. In that unfavourable environment, I tried to correct the views of these writers. Hence, honing my writing skills and the ideological orientation gained by virtue of my family background and previous work experience, I would occasionally put my perspective in the newspaper’s columns through letters to the editor and encourage other like-minded Muslims to articulate their views, too, on the subject. While at The Times, I would also cover local Muslim events and issues.
In October 1986, I left The Times to join Dubai-based Khaleej Times as a sub-editor. During my stint there, I interviewed various eminent Muslim and Islamic personalities visiting the UAE, including the then Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, Syed Abdullah Bukhari, Imarat-e-Shariah Bihar president Mujahidul Islam Qasmi, and Yusuf Islam, the British pop singer who embraced Islam in 1977. Besides, I was assigned to report several important Muslim events in Dubai. I would also contribute to the paper’s hugely popular World of Islam column every Friday.
After having worked at Khaleej Times for 14 years, I looked for greener pastures, both to learn and earn more as well as to continue my mission to highlight Muslim issues and present the Muslim perspective on various Islamic and other issues globally.
In 2000, I joined The Straits Times, the flagship newspaper of the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) print media company. During my stint there, I interviewed former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammed and covered for foreign newspapers various events, including the International Halal Conference in Kuala Lumpur and the International Waqf Conference in Singapore.
After working there for five years, I joined Today Daily. And then The Business Times which is a sister publication of SPH. After retiring from there in October 2017, I was hired by Singapore’s electronic media group, Mediacorp, as News Editor/Journalist for its radio news service. Since 2020, I have been freelancing for some of India’s Urdu and English dailies and Radiance.
How would you like to recall your father’s association with Jamaat?
My late father, Syed Hamid Husain Khateeb, was a dai’i (Islamic preacher), a leader of the Islamic movement, an ideologue, a thinker, and a great orator. For his oratory skills, he was often called Khateeb-ul-Islam (Orator of Islam) by his contemporaries and followers. He devoted most of his life to the propagation of Islam in India and abroad through his association with the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH).
My father was born on February 20, 1920, in the Ellichpur (renamed Achalpur) city of Berar, which was then under the administration of Nizam of Hyderabad. After obtaining primary education there, he studied at Anjuman High School (now a Junior College, too) in Khamgaon in Buldhana district and then in Nagpur.
He joined Indian army as a clerk in 1940 during World War II at Jalna. Later, he quit the army and picked up an English teacher’s job at Islamia High School (now a degree college) in Warangal. He remained in these jobs from 1940 to 1951. He joined Jamaat-e-Islami a year after its re-organisation in April 1948 as Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. A member of a family known as the Khateeb Khandaan (family of orators), he had inherited great oratory skills. Some of his descendants still possess that expertise.
He was All-India Secretary and Amir of Uttar Pradesh state of JIH. He died on September 21, 1985, following a car accident in Jeddah a few days after performing Hajj and was buried at Makkah’s oldest graveyard, Jannatul Ma’ala. Our father was a role model and a great source of inspiration for all his six sons, the only daughter, and many others in our extended family and outside it.
What can India and Singapore learn from each other, with particular reference to pluralism and inclusiveness?
As for pluralism, inclusiveness, and communal and religious harmony, India can learn a lot from Singapore. Singapore is known for its racial, communal, and religious harmony and social cohesion. These are the bedrocks of this Southeast Asian country’s peaceful survival, mutual co-existence, all-round progress, and inclusive prosperity.
To what extent is media independent in Singapore?
Singapore’s media is very professional and responsible. The Ministry of Communications and Information regulates locally produced media content and decides on the availability of published media from abroad. Issues deemed to be inciting racial and religious hatred are prohibited, and media advocating non-traditional family units and lifestyles are avoided.
What is your message for team Radiance and journalists of India?
As Radiance is a missionary paper, launched six decades ago to project mainly Islamic and Muslim causes and promote their interests, its staff are expected to work with a missionary spirit, too, without compromising on the language, quality, or professionalism. They must have a good command of the English language, as language is of paramount importance for success in journalism. Aspiring journalists should start from scratch, as from humble beginnings come great things! As they progress, they need to be fair, unbiased, and bold in their writing.
