At 17, she reads poetry and essays of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. In her free time, when she is not reading or studying textbooks, she goes for walks in her village and helps out her mother at home.
Meet Gagandeep Kaur, from a small village Tahirpura, in Baba Bakala, Amritsar, who questioned CM Bhagwant Mann and got him to announce that the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) would stop using age as a tie-breaker for topper rankings for students with equal marks.
A student of Amber Public Senior Secondary School, Nawa Tanel, a single question from Gagandeep Kaur exposed a rule that many accepted without examining closely.
She questioned the CM on why the PSEB declares “toppers” on the basis of age even if the marks scored are the same.
When others chose to stay quiet, she decided to speak out. “It was about fairness, about a simple discrimination that treated students differently.
“Many students present at the event later told me that they too had the same concerns, but chose to remain silent,” she said while speaking to the Amritsar Tribune.
The requested change was practical, yet, Gagandeep had to be the first to raise the doubt.
She scored 98% in Class 10 PSEB, equal to two other students of her school. The question stemmed from her sense of being treated unfairly.
“I believe that all reforms or changes happen when people ask questions. We have to face discrimination based on gender, caste, community, marks, which is wrong,” she said.
She loves reading Punjabi poetry, inspired by her Punjabi teacher Jatinderpal Kaur, who is her biggest cheerleader. “She is the one who has always encouraged me to speak out. She writes and inspires me to read,” said Gagandeep.
Her father Nishan Singh is currently in UAE and works as driver, 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. Her village is not quite developed but she keeps herself aware of what works and what doesn’t.
“Our village has a lot of problems but we have a good community that comes together to solve them. There is a problem of drug abuse but families take a stand against it. Poeple have also started sending their kids to school, the government school which was earlier till class 10 recently updated and became a senior secondary school,” she shared.
Gagandeep holds a torch to a society grappling with its understanding of democracy. When people question, the government listens, policy change occurs. What Gagandeep did was participate.
