Meet Am­rit Kaur -per­haps the first young Sik­li­gar Sikh lady ad­vo­cate from Hin­gang­hat, Ma­ha­rash­tra, who de­fied all odds to re­al­ize her as­pi­ra­tions with the un­wa­ver­ing sup­port and in­spi­ra­tion of her fa­ther, Thakur Singh. Un­like her fel­low Sik­li­gar girls, through sheer hard work and de­ter­mi­na­tion, Am­rit Kaur is carv­ing out a fu­ture for her­self and a bench­mark for other Sik­li­gar girls to fol­low. In this in­ter­view with WSN cor­re­spon­dent Ka­mal­jeet Singh, she shares her chal­lenges and dreams. WSN will con­tinue to chron­i­cle the sto­ries of these Hum­ble He­roes.

RUN­NING AROUND the lower courts of Hin­gang­hat to the ses­sions court in Chan­dra­pur and some­times to the Au­rangabad bench of the High Court of Mum­bai, Am­rit Kaur delves deep into the cases un­der the guid­ance of her se­nior col­leagues and at the same is pur­su­ing her post­grad­u­a­tion in Law as she sees her des­tiny to be­come a Judge, de­spite the chal­lenges that she con­fronts.

Her el­der brother had to dis­con­tinue his en­gi­neer­ing ed­u­ca­tion due to fi­nan­cial con­straints, Her younger sis­ter is mar­ried. Yet, Am­rit’s de­ter­mi­na­tion pro­pelled her for­ward. She per­se­vered, thanks to her fa­ther’s guid­ance. She rec­og­nized that she was her fa­ther’s bea­con of hope and was de­ter­mined to make his dream a re­al­ity.  She is per­haps the first Sik­li­gar Sikh lady lawyer from Ma­ha­rash­tra.

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Read Hindi ver­sion of this story here

ट्रक ड्राइवर ने बेटी के वकील बनने का सपना किया पूरा

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How did you be­gin your jour­ney as a lawyer?

Am­rit Kaur: With my fa­ther’s un­wa­ver­ing sup­port, men­tor­ing, and im­mense in­spi­ra­tion, I com­pleted my school­ing. Un­like many Sik­li­gar youth, I did­n’t ini­tially have a con­crete goal for my life. My fa­ther be­came my men­tor. He urged me to pur­sue a ca­reer as a lawyer. 

What chal­lenges did you face while build­ing your ca­reer?

Am­rit Kaur: I vividly re­mem­ber the dif­fi­cul­ties my fa­ther faced in ar­rang­ing my col­lege fees. How­ever, he shielded me from the fi­nan­cial bar­ri­ers. Even when we en­coun­tered fi­nan­cial strug­gles dur­ing my col­lege years, my fa­ther found a way through his con­nec­tions. I re­mained res­olute in my stud­ies and forged ahead.

How did you nav­i­gate the land­scape of Sik­li­gars, who tra­di­tion­ally pur­sued less ed­u­ca­tion? Who in­spired you?

Am­rit Kaur: As I have said ear­lier, my fa­ther’s grace and pro­found in­spi­ra­tion em­pow­ered me to per­se­vere in my stud­ies with­out suc­cumb­ing to chal­lenges. Even though rel­a­tives and neigh­bors cau­tioned my fa­ther against al­low­ing me, a girl, to pur­sue a de­mand­ing field like law, my fa­ther and I stood our ground. We were told that the le­gal pro­fes­sion for girls was un­wise and would en­tail dif­fi­cul­ties due to po­ten­tial crim­i­nals and other fac­tors. Nev­er­the­less, I  per­sisted and here I am don­ning the black coat and plead­ing for my clients.   

Where do you en­vi­sion your­self in the next five years?

Am­rit Kaur: I as­pire to pre­pare for higher roles, such as to be­come a judge. I also want to sup­port Sik­li­gar girls to pur­sue their dreams with­out any hin­drance. I also feel that more Sik­li­gars girls must be­come lawyers.  I firmly be­lieve that girls must com­plete their ed­u­ca­tion to achieve fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence.. This em­pow­er­ment can ex­tend to their mar­ried lives as well, should they stand up for their right to ed­u­ca­tion. 

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Read Marathi ver­sion of this story here

ट्रक चालकाने मुलीचे वकील बनण्याचे स्वप्न पूर्ण केले

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What ad­vice do you have for pre­sent-day Sik­li­gar youth, es­pe­cially those who frit­ter away time on un­pro­duc­tive pur­suits?

Am­rit Kaur: A life is wasted with­out goals or as­pi­ra­tions. To all Sik­li­gar youth, I em­pha­size the im­por­tance of pur­su­ing their dreams, ded­i­cat­ing time to learn­ing valu­able skills, and set­ting per­sonal goals. Spend­ing ex­ces­sive time on friv­o­lous ac­tiv­i­ties, be­ing judge­men­tal about oth­ers and in­dulging in loose talk about each other. In­stead, they should fo­cus on skill ac­qui­si­tion and per­sonal de­vel­op­ment. This is the key to up­lift­ing youth and re­al­iz­ing their dreams.

A life is wasted with­out goals or as­pi­ra­tions. To all Sik­li­gar youth, I em­pha­size the im­por­tance of pur­su­ing their dreams, ded­i­cat­ing time to learn­ing valu­able skills, and set­ting per­sonal goals. 

Is your fam­ily con­tent with your ac­com­plish­ments?

Am­rit Kaur: Ab­solutely!

My fa­ther, the force be­hind my achieve­ments, fa­cil­i­tated my ed­u­ca­tion. He un­der­stands the sig­nif­i­cance of ed­u­ca­tion, and his un­wa­ver­ing sup­port and in­spi­ra­tion will ben­e­fit gen­er­a­tions to come. In terms of rel­a­tives, many were ini­tially skep­ti­cal of my pur­suit of law stud­ies. How­ever, they now take pride in my ac­com­plish­ments and ac­knowl­edge their worth. I am mo­ti­vated daily by this sup­port, I am proud of my fam­ily, and pro­foundly grate­ful to my fa­ther. 

This is not the end of the story of Am­rit Kaur. WSN looks for­ward to her be­com­ing a ju­rist in the years to come and serv­ing as an in­spi­ra­tion to the fledg­ling Sik­li­gar boys and girls. Am­rit Kau­r’s jour­ney, from her fa­ther’s role as a truck dri­ver to be­com­ing her men­tor, will serve as a pow­er­ful in­spi­ra­tion.  The WSN team will con­tinue to share such in­spir­ing sto­ries from di­verse cor­ners of the coun­try.