Gurme­har Kaur, a 20 year old Delhi Uni­ver­sity stu­dent, hail­ing from Ja­land­har, Pun­jab shows courage in tak­ing on emerg­ing in­tol­er­ant el­e­ments in In­dia.

God Almighty show­ered ex­em­plary courage on the Lady Shri­ram Col­lege Eng­lish Ho­n­ours stu­dent 20-year-old Gurme­har Kaur, who in the wake of right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Bha­van per­pe­trated vi­o­lence against stu­dents and staff of Ram­jas Col­lege at the Delhi Uni­ver­sity, cried aloud on so­cial me­dia, “enough is enough.” While the coun­try stood scared, me­dia cried foul, op­po­si­tion protested across the coun­try, the rul­ing party pre­var­i­cated and a lead­ing crick­eter ridiculed the girl, and she boldly de­clared in a face­book post, “I am not afraid of ABVP.”

In the sur­charged at­mos­phere in the coun­try, where writ­ers, jour­nal­ists, ac­tivists and politi­cians are liv­ing un­der the shadow of BJP-fear, Gurme­har Kaur stood tall to call a spade a spade.

Dis­sent is dy­ing in In­dian uni­ver­si­ties and it was ex­em­pli­fied again with the Ram­jas Col­lege buck­ling un­der pres­sure of the stu­dent-wing of the BJP and can­celled the de­bate which was to see among oth­ers JNU Ph. D. stu­dent Umar Khaled share views on the trib­als of Bas­tar. Since he is ac­cused of sedi­tion, against whom a charge sheet has not been filed over the last one year, ABVP usurped pow­ers to be the moral po­lice and not al­low him to speak. Not only did they do this ver­bally, but re­sorted to vi­o­lence and mo­lesta­tion of lady stu­dents. I won­dered whether the BJP stu­dents and their RSS mas­ters have read French philoso­pher Voltaire, who de­clared, “I do not agree with what you say, but I shall lay down my life for you to have your say.”

Not able to counter Gurme­har Kau­r’s courage, Kir­ren Ri­jiju Union Min­is­ter of State for Home Af­fairs of In­dia, tweeted “who is pol­lut­ing this girl’s mind”. He did not stop there and tweeted “Gurme­har’s fa­ther’s soul must be weep­ing, see­ing her daugh­ter mis­guided.” With­out re­fer­ring to her cur­rent post, they archived her pre­vi­ous post where she stood for peace while talk­ing about her fa­ther Capt. Man­deep Singh killed in the 1999 Kargil war with Pak­istan. Then her plac­ard read, “Pak­istan did not kill my fa­ther, war killed him.” This re­mark­able com­ment shows the clar­ity of mind of the young stu­dent and how she stood for peace. With thou­sands trolling her on var­i­ous so­cial me­dia plat­forms, she has been forced to with­draw un­der threats of as­sault and death.

Ul­tra-na­tion­al­ists could only see hate in her mes­sage of peace. In an un­for­tu­nate tweet. Shame­lessly and care­lessly, In­dian Crick­eter Viren­der Se­hwag poked fun at her and tweeted, “I did­n’t score two triple cen­turies, my bat did”. Bol­ly­wood ac­tor Ran­deep Hooda sup­ported him and Haryana Min­is­ter Anil Vij, not to be left be­hind de­clared, “Those sup­port­ing Gurme­har Kaur, should be thrown out”. Re­sort­ing to the Goebbels ap­proach, ABVP gen­er­ated a fake video claim­ing that Gurme­har Kaur was danc­ing in a car.

It is com­fort­ing to note that cut­ting across party lines, caste lines and re­li­gious dif­fer­ences, many hu­man­i­tar­ian as well as Sikh or­ga­ni­za­tions have come in sup­port of Gurme­har Kaur against the pseudo-na­tion­al­ists.
We say that tak­ing cue from Gurme­har Kaur, the ABVP should pray for Guru Mehr Kare so that wis­dom can dawn on them. The young girl so ably lived the ideals of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, be­headed in Delhi af­firm­ing the hymn, “Bh­hai kaa­hoo kohn det naih, naih bhai manat aan -Fear none, frighten none. Guru Mehr Kare!

Jasvin­der Singh
Delhi Desk, TWSN