Gurmehar Kaur, daughter of Kargil martyer Captain Mandeep Singh, has been in news for her campaign against the ABVP with regard to the Ramjas College violence. However, the 20-year-old grabbed much attention after one of her messages "Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him" in a video went viral. But do people know what the whole message actually was?
It all started after Gurmehar started a social media campaign titled "Students Against ABVP" for the violence that had erupted at the Ramjas College. She posted a picture on Facebook and Twitter, holding a placard that 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. #StudentsAgainstABVP".
This campaign was already creating a lot of hullabaloo, followed by a lot of praises as well as abuses for Gurmehar. In the mean time, one of her earlier messages with regard to India-Pakistan relationship also went viral. However, only a part of the message in the video went viral, which apparently misconstrued the message as a whole.
The video, in which Gurmehar is seen narrating her plight of losing her father due to a war, was uploaded on YouTube many months back. The young girl used a number of placards to convey a strong message of peace between India and Pakistan.
In the video, she said how the death of her father during the 1999 Kargil war had made her hate all Pakistanis and even Muslims. She said that having lost her father at the age of two, she had developed a belief that Pakistanis were responsible for that and she thought all Muslims were Pakistanis. Gurmehar said that she even had attempted to stab a woman in Burkha when she was just six-year-old. It was her mother who made her understand that her father would have been alive if there was no war.
In the video, Gurmehar pleaded the governments of both the nations to "stop pretending" and actually resolve the issue. Her message was to end war and start working towards making a peaceful environment across the borders so that no child again loses a father due to war.
Nevertheless, only one placard from the entire video went viral that had "Pakistan did not kill my dad, war killed him" written over it. Although the young student received much support, there were many hate remarks against Gurmehar and jokes on social media.
Even former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag trolled Gurmehar for the message by sharing his photo, holding a placard that had "I didn't score two triple centuries, my bat did" written over it.
Her message was just to abandon hatred and work towards peace. But making just a part of the message viral, apparently distorted the meaning of the whole message. Or it was intentionally done to break her growing popularity among the youth? Check the video here to know what Gurmehar actually tried to convey in the message:
