“When I was recently at Bijapur again and for the first time visited its famous dome, a friend of mine who was as deeply impressed as myself by that wonderful pile, asked me in a whisper right across the dome if Europe with all its boast of superiority had a whispering gallery such as that of the ‘Gol Gumbad’. It is no doubt a most astonishing experience to be able to hear distinctly across such a great space everything that is whispered, and the nine echoes heard in the gallery are equally remarkable. My friend was for the moment living the brilliant past of Bijapur over again and felt inordinate pride in the achievements of his Muslim ancestors. It was a great shock to him when I whispered back to him that the Whispering Gallery of Europe was even more marvellous. And then I told him that Europe’s Whispering Gallery was the Press, its Fourth Estate! Every lie softly whispered in the Editor Proprietor’s sanctum was shouted across all the continents, increasing in pitch and volume with every reverberation till it ended in the united shriek of hundreds of millions, of fanatics and lunatics, leaving no chance for poor tongue-tied Truth to be heard.”
-Excerpted from Mohammed Ali Jauhar’s address to the Indian National Congress Session, held in in Coconada, in 1923, in the capacity of Congress President. From the book, Ali Brothers, Role in Freedom Struggle, pp. 190-191
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