by B. R. GOWANI
Gurmehar Kaur, whose father died during the Kargil war when she was 2-year-old PHOTO/The Hindu
Gurmehar Kaur, a student at Lady Shri Ram College (LSRC), a part of the Delhi University in India’s capital New Delhi, decided to register her protest in a silent fashion by holding a placard which read:
“I am a student from Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me. #StudentsAgainst ABVP”
She was responding to the violence which had occurred in her college on February 22, 2017, between two groups: right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and left-wing All India Students Association (AISA). So the invitations to Jawahrlal Nehru University (JNU) students Shehla Rashid Shora and Umar Khalid to address a seminar at LSRC on “Culture of Protests” were withdrawn. (ABVP is affiliated with right-wing Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, i.e., RSS, a parent organization of India’s ruling party BJP, i.e., Bharatiya Janata Party).
On her Facebook page, she posted a longer message:
The brutal attack on innocent students by ABVP is very disturbing and should be stopped. It was not an attack on protestors, but an attack on every notion of democracy that is held dear in ever Indian’s heart. It is an attack on ideals, morals, freedom and rights of every person born to this nation. The stones that you pelt hit our bodies, but fail to bruise our ideas.
This profile picture is my way of protesting against the tyranny of fear. If you are a student in any Indian university, in any Indian state and you wish to protest against ABVP then take a similar selfie and make it your profile picture. Use the hashtag #StudentsAgainstABVP and copy paste this message along with it.
It’s time for every student of India to unite! Jai Hind! Jai Democracy!
The right-wingers dug up an April 2016 video by Kaur which was made for the #ProfileforPeace project. In the video, she’s seen narrating some life changing incidents of hers, through a series of placards. When she was two-year-old, her father Captain Mandeep Singh was killed in 1999 during the Kargil War between Pakistan and India. Her rage and age led her to hate Pakistan and Pakistanis whom she blamed for her father’s death; she also despised Muslims because she thought all Muslims were Pakistanis. At the age of six, she tried to jab a woman in burkha whom, “for some strange reason,” she thought was accountable for her father’s demise. Her mother stopped her and made her understand that “Pakistan did not kill my Dad, War killed him.” She then turned into a “soldier” who’s now fighting for peace between the two nations. The placards are critical of leaders of both countries because of their failure to create peace between them.
“Pakistan did not kill my Dad, War killed him” was the sentence that bothered the nationalistic and patriotic Hindutva forces the most.
Kaur’s video was out of bounds for people who flourish on hate, enmity, wars, communalism, sexism, racism, casteism, and such. Instead of feeling proud that one of their compatriots, just 20-year-old student who, despite losing her father in war during infancy, was talking about peace with a next door neighbor linked historically, geographically, culturally, and in so many ways with their nation, they pounced on her. Not only a famous cricketer and an actor made fun of her, but several politicians and a minister joined in too. The Minister of State (Home) Kiren Rijiju:
Kaur responded:
“I have my own mind. Nobody is polluting my mind. I am not anti-national”
If Rijiju had a little common sense, he would have realized that it’s a polluted mind like his that craves enmity and war, and detests peace. In the past, Rijju had said “questioning the authorities and the police” should stop because it’s not “good culture.” (This was in reference to the fake encounter killing of 8 Simi (Students Islamic Movement of India) members by the police in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, last year.)
Pakistan, though no saint, is the freely available boogeyman blamed too frequently – most of the times falsely – by the patriotic scoundrels in India; the aim being to distract people’s attention from its own government’s crimes, wrongs, and blunders. To avoid reasonable discussions, many a times opponents are accused of colluding with an “enemy” and are told to go to Pakistan. (Watch this funny video Patriotism & the Government by Kunal Kamra.)
Anil Vij, State of Haryana’s sports minister, like many other BJP leaders, used that tactic:
“Those who are supporting Gurmehar Kaur are all pro-Pakistan. Such people have no right to live in India and they should be thrown out of the country.”
The right-wingers are so bereft of brilliant ideas and are so greedy for absolute power that their ammunition arsenal contains nothing more than few emotion-rousing slogans such as patriotism, nationalism, and religion. Another right-winger, Panaji MLA Siddharth Kuncolienkar, accused some leftist leaders of utilizing youths like Gurmehar Kaur in their efforts to break the spirits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. He then questioned:
“We refer to India as our mother. How can we keep quiet when someone is trying to cut our mother into pieces?”
Mother India has never stayed the same. Ashoka’s India was different than Akbar’s, whose India changed under British. More changes occurred after the Partition. Future? No one knows. Peace is one good option to prevent India from getting cut into pieces.
India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar was also asked about the incident at LSRC. He said:
“I believe in the freedom of expression with whatever legal restrictions are there. All freedom of expression have legal limit. You cannot barge on another person’s right.”
General Secretary Sitaram Yechuri of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) raised a question about who defines the “legal restrictions.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hasn’t said anything on the Kaur issue. But then, he’s busy trying to win elections going on in some states. That doesn’t mean he has no knowledge of LSRC incident. Modi is as vengeful and dangerous as US President Donald Trump, but unlike Trump, Modi is clever and cunning.
Kaur was made fun of and trolled by several famous people from different fields. Kaur was compared to Dawood Ibrahim, a famous gangster. She received rape and intimidating threats. (Rape threats are frequently used against women worldwide.)
A video of a girl, falsely identified as Kaur, shown dancing in a car goes viral. Kaur’s sensible response was:
“The girl in the car wasn’t me. But whether she was or she wasn’t.. was it okay to shame her like that? #swachhthoughts”
Many people supported Kaur. Indian female badminton star Jwala Gutta had this to say:
“It’s sad that when a person expresses her opinion about peace..people r emphasising on the word Pakistan and creating a ruckus.“
Fayaz Khan, a Pakistani, made a silent video with placards supporting Kaur.
India’s President Pranab Mukherjee commented on the violence at the LSRC by saying there’s “no room in India for the intolerant Indian.”
(Mukherjee belongs to All India Congress, one of the opposition parties. In the parliamentary system of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, most of the power rests in the hands of prime minister.)
But it was too much for Kaur. After rape and death threats, she called it quits, closed her Facebook account, and left Delhi.
“I’m withdrawing from the campaign. Congratulations everyone. I request to be left alone. I said what I had to say..” (1/2)
But on March 9, 2017, she returned to social media via her Twitter account.
Patriots are strange creatures; this is true for every country. Their sensibilities are very fragile. Same is true of India’s Hindu nationalists/patriots who don’t mind that 1 in 5 Indians is poor; that in the Asia-Pacific region, India is the most corrupt country; that there were 34,651 cases of rape reported in India in 2015 – the rapes in India are “highly under-reported,” or other similarly dismal statistics but their blood boils when Gurmehar Kaur blames war for her father’s death; and talks of peace with Pakistan, an “enemy.”
Kavita Krishnan of All India Progressive Women’s Association, wonders about the critics of Kaur who saw her message of peace as “anti-national” but not the threats of rape, as such.
In Delhi Assembly, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) Alka Lamba raised a question as to why Modi’s meetings with Pakistani premier are not considered “anti-national” whereas Kaur’s calling of war responsible for deaths considered as such?
Thanks to her mother’s decent reasoning, Gurmehar’s life took a positive turn and she started on the path to peace, friendship, and co-existence. But that is not acceptable to warmongering monsters, and so her silent protest was silenced because it scared the hell out of the hawks who crave for blood of the “enemy” and also blood of their own war fodder whom they’ll send to extract enemy blood. There were no threats of any sorts in Kaur’s messages and yet her voice was silenced. The right wing Hindu nationalists wants no opposition, of any kind.
It is nice to see that Kaur has returned back to continue her fight. Wish no harm is visited upon her person.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com