At 17, Gagandeep Kaur reads poetry and essays penned by Shaheed Bhagat Singh and in her free time goes out for a walk in her village and helps out mother at home.
A resident of Tahirpura, a nondescript village in Baba Bakala, Amritsar, Gagandeep’s question to Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann made him change a convention. She got the CM to announce that the Punjab School Education Board would stop using age as tie-breaker to rank students with identical scores.
A student of Amber Public Senior Secondary School, Nawa Tanel, Gagandeep’s poser exposed a convention that, hitherto, many accepted without examining it closely.
When others chose to stay quiet, she decided to speak her mind. “It was about fairness and about the practice that treated students differently. Many students present at the event later told me that they too had same concern, but chose to remain silent,” Gagandeep told Amritsar Tribune.
She had scored 98% in Class 10 PSEB exam, equal to two other students of her school. Her question stemmed from her sense of being treated unfairly. “I believe that all reforms or changes happened when people ask questions. We have to face discrimination based on gender, caste, community and marks, which is wrong,” she said.
Gagandeep loves reading Punjabi poetry and is inspired by her Punjabi teacher Jatinderpal Kaur, her biggest cheerleader. “She is the one who has always encouraged me to speak out. She writes and inspires me to read,” Gagandeep said.
Her father Nishan Singh is working as a driver in UAE, while her mother Sukhrak Kaur is a homemaker. Gagandeep wants to study law and become a judge. “I feel that I need to speak for people, who have no voice,” she said.
Though her village ‘underdeveloped’, she remains aware of what works and what doesn’t. “Our village has lot of problems but we have a good community that comes together to solve issues. There is a problem of drug abuse, but families take a stand against it. People have also started sending their kids to school. The government school, which was earlier till Class 10, was recently upgraded to senior secondary level,” she shared.
Gagandeep holds a torch to a society grappling with its understanding of democracy. When people question, government listens and policy change occurs is her belief.
