Why I am proud of my friend Gurmehar Kaur
Four days ago I wanted to put up a post congratulating a few people.
For managing to snuff out idealism and a fervent desire to make a change in her country, in a girl I am really proud to know.
A girl who is my friend, my children’s friend and one of the few young kids who has had long discussions with me about how she’d like to be the change she wants to see in the world.
A girl full of fun, enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. You would never guess from her passionate, full of laughter discussions that she has spent a childhood full of hatred and despair for having lost her father at a very young age to war.
This girl is sorted, intelligent, totally apolitical and was living her life in a conscientious manner. A girl who I would be proud to call my daughter.
But four days ago, I wanted to congratulate:
- The minister who attacked her ability to think for herself.
- The youth wing of the ruling political party for managing to silence her through life and rape threats so that no woman would dare to question their bullying, violent ways.
- The intellectual who picked a bone of contention about how her father was technically not a Kargil martyr because he was killed in Kupwara defending the Indian post, four days after the Kargil War was officially over.
- The cricketer who batted with his wit to show the world the fallacy of her statement when she blamed war and not the enemy for her father’s killing.
- The actor who laughed at her naivety even though he had earlier issued statements wishing Pakistan a happy independence day.
- The haters who put up videos of a woman doing a vulgar dance and saying it was her.
- Political parties for digging up a year-old video and using her idealistic, apolitical stand as a ruse against opposing political parties.
- Millions of young, educated youngsters on social media who without seeing the whole video, gullibly picked up that one line and made fun of her for not naming the enemy who killed her father, by posting their own version of her statement to bring home their nationalist viewpoint.
- And most of all to the articulate men who are bringing up brave, free-thinking daughters, who argued about why she was wrong in doing what she did.
But that was four days ago. When Gurmehar Kaur had withdrawn from her campaign against violence and left her college campus in Delhi for the safety of her home in Jalandhar. When she had taken down her Facebook page. When she had gone off social media.
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I reached out to her. She immediately ensured me that though shaken to the core she was coping. But my heart cried out. For the killing of her deep-rooted desire to be the change in this country, in the world.
For her being put on trial by one and all, because she had the courage to put on her Facebook page a placard that said that she was not afraid of bullies who had created violence on campus, roughing up students and professors alike, even if they belonged to the ruling party.
But today I will not put up that post. Because today I see her stronger, and even more determined to be herself. She is back on Facebook, silently sharing the aftermath of the high-strung drama with the world.
With an inner strength that you don’t see much in today’s clime, she resists being carried away by all the political support she’s being offered by opposing parties. She is shaken but her inner strength has kept her from crumbling.
She may be 20, she maybe a woman, she may have been apolitical, she may be innocent, but her faith in love and peace has proved to be stronger than the forces it has been pitted against.
So instead today I will put up a post congratulating Gurmehar Kaur. And the myriad young women who have become my friends in the last couple of decades. Who have stopped the seeds of cynicism from developing in my mind and heart.
Who have given me courage to take my life in my own hands. And speak fearlessly for what I believe in. Who make me and many like me wish to have a daughter. Who can challenge the wrong and dare to be the change they want.